iQ by Intelhttps://iq.intel.comen-USThu, 17 Aug 2017 22:03:22 PDTintel/scoophttps://feedburner.google.comFashion Tech Designer and Bionic Pop Artist Team Up to Make Musical Wearablehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/kKOrLNmX1g8/Uncategorized3d printingAnouk WipprechtSonificaViktoria ModestaVicky ThompsonThu, 17 Aug 2017 19:54:35 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=20640How a bionic pop artist, a fashion tech designer, an architect duo and a prosthetics company teamed up to reshape the future of performing arts.

After years of bringing sci-fi wearable technologies to runways and industry events, designer and Dutch tech-head Anouk Wipprecht decided it was time to create a wearable bustier that turned the body into an instrument. With the help of multi-media performance artist Viktoria Modesta, Sonifica was born.

The name is short for “sonification,” which Wipprecht said is the use of non-speech audio to convey information or “perceptualize” data.

Working with architects Eric Goldemberg and Veronica Zalcberg from Miami-based Monad Studio and prosthetics innovator LIM Innovations, the team created a new kind of connectivity between sound and the body.

The 3D-printed sonic bustier has long, protruding tusks equipped with sensors and actuators that allow Modesta to modulate the sound of her live performances. Both pieces use open-source hardware and software, embedded with a compute module that recognizes gestures, and a six-axis accelerometer and gyroscope to track movement.

“It allows her to become the instrument and interact spatially and sonically with her environment,” said Wipprecht.

Wipprecht and Monad Studio’s Goldemberg worked on the tusk bodice over several months, using feedback from Modesta’s experience wearing the uniquely shaped art.

“With this project, we bring out a raw primitivism, a fundamental energy that has the capacity to move people, and heal and nurture new possible forms of art where sound, vision, touch, space, fashion, architecture, couture and sculpture are fused,” said Goldemberg.

Although Sonifica marks the first time Wipprecht has created something that uses sound, it clearly reflects her signature provocative-playful allure. She called the Sonifica bodice a “statemental” object that is primal and instinctive.

“I am known for programming and design, but I haven’t experimented with music too much. The collaboration with Viktoria was a weird hybrid for me of prototyping design and learning on the way about how to engage sound,” said Wipprecht. “It opened up ideas on how you can compose and influence these vibrations.”

Bionic Pop Artist

Modesta, born in Latvia, is both a performer and a futurist with a passion for science and technology. She’s better known as the self-proclaimed “bionic pop artist” who uses her prosthetic leg as a functioning form of art.

When an accident after birth left her in pain throughout her childhood, at age 20 Modesta got a voluntary amputation of her left leg below the knee. Yet, none of that stopped her from fearlessly pursuing her passion for performing arts.

In fact, she’s learned to leverage the prosthetic as a statement-making, transformative appendage.

Anouk Wipprecht designed the Sonifica bustier to merge technology, art and music.

“Instead of looking at an augmented prosthetic as a medical device, I could experiment how to adorn the body through functional technology and fashion as an art form, and how these objects not only can be worn as a second skin, but the systematic role they would play in pop culture,” she told On The Inside magazine.

She said the bustier has transformational powers.

“The tusks create a different silhouette,” Modesta said. “It gives you a more animalistic skeleton but also has almost a sexual addition to the body.”

This mother of invention blends maker movement fervor with a playful sense for high-tech fashion. She creates computer-powered outfits that react to the wearer’s personal space, mood, emotions, movements and perspectives on the world.

The Sonifica bustier allows Modesta (right) to modulate the sound of her live performances.

Her spider dress, designed with a collar of mechanical legs that attack anyone who steps too close, changes the notion of a killer cocktail dress. Her neuroscience unicorn wearable senses brainwaves to turn on a tiny camera to help kids dealing with ADHD remember important moments.

Wipprecht’s compelling designs invite the viewer to interact with the outfits. Sonifica is no different.

“The shape of the tusks that we created compels you to touch or grab them. It’s very physical,” said Wipprecht. “Translating physical touch from there in an even more primal way through the extension of sound in space mutates the performance in an interesting hybrid between analog and digital.”

Wipprecht said Sonifica is an ongoing experiment that will evolve over time as it adapts to Modesta’s physical body. In upcoming performances, the creative team hopes to open-source the code and design, inviting the audience to engage in the project.

“Instead of creating a show to be consumed, we are creating a show collaboratively, creating a new sense of intimacy and participation with an audience,” said Wipprecht.

Modesta said the future of musical instruments will encourage non-traditional performance that can incorporate meaningful movement.

“Fusing with an artificial extension to my body has given me a different kind of power to my performance art,” said Modesta.

]]><p>How a bionic pop artist, a fashion tech designer, an architect duo and a prosthetics company teamed up to reshape the future of performing arts. After years of bringing sci-fi wearable technologies to runways and industry events, designer and Dutch tech-head Anouk Wipprecht decided it was time to create a wearable bustier that turned the &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/fashtech-designer-bionic-artist-musical-wearable-2/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/fashtech-designer-bionic-artist-musical-wearable-2/">Fashion Tech Designer and Bionic Pop Artist Team Up to Make Musical Wearable</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/fashtech-designer-bionic-artist-musical-wearable-2/Leading Smithsonian Art Lovers Into VRhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/WRFUCRqpzqQ/UncategorizedSAAM VRSmithsonian Museumvirtual realityVRVicky ThompsonTue, 15 Aug 2017 11:10:03 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=20927To digitally capture and render art-filled rooms inside the Smithsonian museum in intricate detail, the creators of SAAM VR turned to leading-edge computer technologies.

Inside the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), the famous painting “Aurora Borealis” by Frederic Edwin Church depicts a glowing red sky, but unlike most 5-by-7-foot canvas paintings, this piece of art pulls visitors inside the celestial scene.

Virtual reality (VR) headsets let people look and move around the majestic, colorful setting, giving them sensations of being there.

The immersive painting is one of many artistic VR experiences at SAAM. Visitors to the Washington, D.C. museum can now experience the full east wing of the Smithsonian in VR, complete with some unexpected twists and surprises.

VR headsets allow museum-goers to immerse themselves in SAAM’s permanent collection like never before, said Peter Martin, the project’s lead creative director and producer from VALIS Studios.

“SAAM VR is our proof of concept for virtualizing the museum experience,” said Martin.

When most people think about VR, the first thing that comes to mind is gaming.

But according to Kumar Chinnaswamy, director of commercial VR in Intel’s Client Computing Group, commercial uses of VR will account half of the market as soon as the next five years.

He sees a growing number of commercial applications for VR in areas like education, retail and transportation. Goldman Sachs estimates the market for VR and augmented reality (AR) could grow to $128 billion by 2025.

SAAM sees the benefits of bringing its treasures to VR, and Martin’s team is helping the museum break new ground in the digital world.

Currently, the largest museums only display about 5 percent of their collection, leaving a great majority of the world’s fine art inaccessible to the public.

A 2016 survey of major museums found that nearly half of Pablo Picasso’s paintings are not hanging on the walls, but are instead stored in museum archives. That’s not counting art that has been irrevocably lost to war and disaster, like Caravaggio’s “Saint Matthew and the Angel.”

SAAM has over 47,000 works of art, but almost 90 percent remain hidden away in storage. Creating extremely high-resolution renders of these hidden gems could allow people to experience them from anywhere in the world.

SAAM VR efforts began in 2016 when Martin and his team got special access to the museum for five straight days. They brought an arsenal of equipment, including high-speed cameras, ultra-high resolution cameras and a panoply of laser scanners for measuring the exact dimensions of the building.

Image courtesy of SAAM.

“It’s almost like a CSI crime investigation,” said Martin. “We had to scan and photograph every square inch of every wall. It’s a very meticulous process.”

The team captured selected areas of the museum and several art pieces with the highest degree of precision. They began by taking approximately 2,000 photos of each room.

The team pieced together the photos like a puzzle to build a replica of the museum into a VR experience. Everything built in VR needed the same shape, texture and form as in real life to create the most authentic experience for VR users.

That’s easier said than done, according to Raj Puran, who manages commercial VR and AR experiences at Intel.

“That’s not something that can be done simply today. It takes a whole lot of effort and compute power to make that happen,” said Puran.

The project went according to plan onsite at the museum, but during post-production, Martin quickly found himself painted into a corner.

For Johannes Saam, a senior creative developer at Framestore VR, the VR process had generated an extraordinary amount of data. The team’s industry-grade computers were having trouble handling the extra load. At that rate, it would have taken an excruciatingly long time to do the job — around three months, by Saam’s estimate.

Image courtesy of SAAM.

To complicate matters, time was of the essence. The finished project was launching at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in early January 2017.

With the deadline only a month away, Martin called for reinforcements.

“We need some heavy computing power,” he recalled saying.

He turned to Intel, sponsor of the SAAM VR project, for help. He got a custom-built PC equipped with the fastest chip commercially available, an Intel Broadwell-E Core i7-6950X 10-core processor. Even more cutting edge was the computer’s Intel Optane memory, an extremely fast storage technology that was not available on the market at the time.

The desktop computer cut a laborious 24 hours worth of ordering images down to only six hours.

Greg Downing, president of xRez Studio, which was responsible for turning thousands of museum pictures into an interactive experience, said the new system improved his speed threefold, helping him meet the tight deadline.

Martin said faster computing power has broad implications for VR. Because of the massive time commitment, today’s VR creators are wary of trying to preserve real places in VR.

Image courtesy of SAAM.

“For VR to thrive, it has to become faster and cheaper to make,” said Martin. “Then there will be more experiences.”

As one of the first room-scale VR experiences of its kind, SAAM VR only captures a small portion of the museum.

The team confessed that they purposely avoided some of the more popular Smithsonian museums, such as the National Museum of Natural History and the National Air and Space Museum, due to the difficulty of capturing large-scale objects like lunar modules and Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons.

As computing and VR technologies advances, immersive museum experiences will become the norm.

As the world’s population grows, agriculture faces the challenge of 2 billion more people to feed, global labor shortages for field work and low prices for crops, making farming a tough business.

But agricultural technology — from artificial intelligence (AI) to computer vision to cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) — is transforming agricultural machinery, helping farmers produce more food than ever before.

“I dream of a world in 10 to 20 years where hardly any humans, if any humans, are in the fields anymore,” said Mark Johnson, CEO of Los Alamos, N.M.-based Descartes Labs, a firm that employs AI to analyze satellite imagery.

“That’s going to have a significant global impact. You’re going to see yields go way up, for example, in the developing world. So no longer will it be farmer-led practices — these are going to be robotics-led practices.”

In the developing world, where almost half the population is connected to agriculture in some way, technologies like robotics, IoT and cloud computing are critical to solving issues of hunger and improving standards of living.

Embracing New Ag Tech

Until the introduction of the reaper in the 1800s, small armies of people had to cut and gather cereal crops. Threshers later improved labor by mechanically separating the grain from the chaff. And harvesting combines, which did multiple tasks, accelerated productivity.

Today’s technologies are the descendants in this lineage of agricultural advances.

“It’s impossible to pick out every good kernel of grain by hand or even with machinery,” said Karin Wehlin, CEO of the Swedish company BoMill.

“But with a mix of big data, artificial intelligence and robotics, we can pick out each and every individual grain and sort out the good from the bad.”

BoMill’s TriQ sorter directs grains into narrow channels where computer vision analyzes each grain and separates the bad from the good. The refrigerator-sized device can process 3 tons of wheat per hour.

This could make a big difference in North America where growers lose $4 billion annually in crop waste because of harvest losses, said Wehlin.

“If we could save 50 percent of it, to be conservative, that’s a big number,” she added. “And the application to world hunger is obvious.”

Automation promises to increase the availability of food, improve nutrition and bring down costs for food producers worldwide.

“We’ve got a driverless tractor on order and we’re excited about seeing how it works for us,” said Kip Tom, CEO of Tom Farms in Leesburg, Ind. “The reality is things are moving toward AI and robotics, that’s where a lot of investment is going.”

Tom pointed out that robotics development and adoption in the U.S. is happening first in California and regions that grow produce, but he said it won’t take long for commodity crop producers of corn, wheat and soybeans in the Midwest to embrace the new technology.

Solving Labor Shortages

In the U.S., agricultural businesses are urgently pushing the development of robots to make up for chronic labor shortages. As agricultural regions in Central and South America catch up to North American output, farm laborers in those areas are increasingly staying home to work, creating a labor shortage in the U.S.

While the use of smart farm equipment is still in the early adoption stage, the idea of robots solving worker shortages is old news, according to history professor Paul Conkin, author of A Revolution Down on the Farm.

The shakeout of farm labor in the U.S. already happened over the past century. In 1870, about half the American population worked on farms. Today, less than 2 percent of the U.S. labor force works in agriculture.

While this job loss may seem negative, it spurred the greatest economic boom in human history. Food prices crashed and have remained low. Now, less than 10 percent of the average income is spent on food, said Conkin. That’s considerably less than 17.5 percent spent on food in 1960, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“There was dramatic change up to the 1940s when I was a boy growing up on a farm in Tennessee,” said Conkin. “But where it really takes off — and it’s just so incredible that no one could even analyze it while it was happening — is from 1950 to 1970.”

During that 20-year period, the farm workforce was cut in half, yet overall productivity rose by 40 percent. Labor productivity per hour of work rose 2.5 times in non-agricultural industries — on the farm, output increased seven times, said Conkin.

“Today, one person can harvest thousands of acres of wheat [using agricultural technology]. It’s mind boggling to think about where we’ve come from the reaper,” said Conkin.

Increasing Worker Safety

Many U.S. agricultural businesses envision robotics increasing safety on the farm. Picking and processing produce is an arduous process. It requires repetitive motion while holding a blade, bending over to cut the crop.

Taylor Farms in Salinas, Calif. is developing its own automation program, deploying semi-robotic platforms that pick and package Romaine lettuce.

Chris Rotticci, director of automated harvesting equipment at Taylor Farms, said the current design is aimed at increasing productivity and yield in the field, and improving the ergonomics for workers.

“Rather than the heavy labor job of bending over eight to 10 hours a day, they’re riding on a machine,” said Rotticci. “It’s like a mobile factory where they’ve moved into a quality assurance job where they’re selecting, sorting and packing, compared to cutting down on the ground all day.”

Rotticci said the current design of the automated harvesters uses an onboard computer to collect and analyze every square foot of the field.

The harvester uses a water jet system to cut the lettuce. Using computer optics to see the Romaine, the harvester cuts it with a water jet stream. Then a conveyor belt moves the lettuce heads up to the top of the harvester platform for workers to pack. Human hands barely touch the crop because the lettuce is packed in the field in real time and sent immediately to market.

In the future, robotics will replace the people on the platform and driverless harvesters may only have one person onboard to monitor the harvest, Rotticci added.

Precision Pesticide Application

Robots also do dangerous jobs like applying herbicides and pesticides.

“It comes down to what is the highest and best use for robots and this is one area that makes a lot of sense,” said Tom of Tom Farms. “Even though we follow everything to the degree of the law on the label, the reality is we can further limit that exposure for farm workers and consumers.”

As consumer demand rises for high-quality foods using fewer chemicals, robotics offers a way to fulfill it with precision agriculture.

The marriage of farm implements with computer vision and AI results in the capability to spray herbicide narrowly on a weed, according to Jorge Heraud, CEO of Blue River Technology based in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Robotic sprayers can selectively target where to spray fertilizer on growing plants. Photo courtesy of Blue River Technology.

“We can cut the amount of herbicides used by a factor of somewhere between five and 10 times. We can reduce the amount of fertilizer, putting it where it’s needed, next to the plant and only to the plants that need it and the amounts that are needed,” said Heraud.

In a world where herbicide resistance threatens farming, Heraud said about 3 billion pounds of herbicides are now sprayed on a growing list of resistant plants at a cost of $25 billion annually.

Blue River Technology’s robotic sprayers identify plants from a library of profiles and essentially eject, much like an ink jet printer, small amounts of herbicide onto unwanted weeds. The device can also pinpoint the delivery of fertilizer for crops.

“[With robotics], we can even reduce the need for equipment by using it more efficiently and doing more,” he added.

Increasing Productivity

Throughout the history of agricultural tech, productivity is key to economic growth.

“In the last 10 years, global demand has gone up a billion bushels a year, a 40 percent increase in demand and yet we have declining commodity prices because of the productivity of technology,” said Mike Vande Logt, executive vice president and COO of Shoreview, Minn.-based WinField United, which is in the business of seed and crop protection.

Blue River Technology can spray a directed pattern of herbicide on weeds. Photo courtesy of Blue River Technology.

As greater efficiencies bring crop prices down, the only way a farmer can keep up is to embrace new technologies to lower the cost of production.

According to Vande Logt, productivity is one of agriculture’s most important metrics, revealing the difference between those farm operations that invest in tech and those that don’t.

“That chasm is going to change the dynamics of where food is grown and what people eat.”

]]><p>Using AI and robotics, smart farm equipment will help farmers produce 70 percent more food by 2050 — to feed an ever-increasing world population. As the world’s population grows, agriculture faces the challenge of 2 billion more people to feed, global labor shortages for field work and low prices for crops, making farming a tough &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/smart-farm-equipment-helps-feed-world-2/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/smart-farm-equipment-helps-feed-world-2/">Smart Farm Equipment Helps Feed the World</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/smart-farm-equipment-helps-feed-world-2/Safety Tech for Outdoor Adventurershttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/w43jc3vJ3oE/Uncategorizedoutdoor safety techVicky ThompsonThu, 17 Aug 2017 19:42:48 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=20730Outdoor safety technology can keep adventurers connected to emergency assistance even on remote bike paths, trails and waterways.

After wrapping up an afternoon of sun and surfing, Jeffrey Huntley and his buddy were looking for a spot nearby to camp for the night.

As they turned the corner onto a service road just out of sight of the highway, Huntley’s friend spotted a man lying on the ground, entangled in a bicycle.

“It took me a second to realize that the man was in extreme distress. He was in and out of consciousness, bleeding profusely from multiple injuries on his face and hand,” said Huntley, who lives in Big Sur, Calif.

A former emergency responder, Huntley began first aid while his buddy activated the InReach device — a satellite communicator — they brought in case of emergency.

With dangers to cyclists, runners and hikers ranging from potentially serious accidents to navigational misadventures to rabid raccoons, safety tech makes the great outdoors safer for nature enthusiasts.

Outdoor emergencies can happen at any time, and carrying safety tech that enables easy access to search and rescue teams can make a huge difference in getting home safely.

Satellite Lifesavers

Rescue devices using satellite technology to transmit GPS location aren’t new, but now they’re more affordable and accessible for recreational adventurers.

Garmin’s inReach, as well as ACR’s ResQLink and SPOT’s Gen3, follow similar distress beacon protocols, but they use different satellite technology. By pressing a distress button on the rescue device, a 406 MHz signal containing GPS coordinates pings off satellites to alert first responders of an emergency.

Using the government-maintained Cospas-Sarsat international satellite system for search and rescue, ACR offers personal locator beacons that don’t require a subscription plan. When ResQLink owners register their device, they receive a distinct user ID, which is encoded in the distress signal.

This simple one-way communication beacon directs search and rescue teams to the person’s location through a series of relays.

First, the ResQLink beacon sends an emergency radio signal to satellites that are part of Cospas-Sarsat search and rescue network. The satellites relay the message with the person’s location to a ground terminal station, which then routes the information to the mission control center. This team then alerts the nearest rescue coordination center to dispatch search and rescue resources to find the person in distress.

SPOT Gen3 and inReach rescue devices offer more services than the ResQLink. These devices use privately-owned satellite systems connected to the GEOS International Emergency Response Coordination Center. When an SOS distress call is sent, GEOS provides GPS coordinates to local emergency response teams.

Both SPOT Gen3 and inReach rescue devices allow text messaging — sent to email or smartphones — with a subscription plan. Enthusiasts can also track, record and share where their adventures take them.

The inReach beacon offers more interactive technology, including two-way communication with GEOS during emergencies, weather forecasts and an Earthmate app for pairing the inReach with a smartphone or tablet for messaging, planning and map viewing.

Cellular Security

For people who like to stay on the beaten path — especially solo runners or cyclists — a satellite beacon might be overkill. Most people bring their smartphones everywhere they go.

However, in some distress situations — whether an injury or imminent threat from an attacker — it may be impossible to place a call. That’s when an app like Road ID could come in handy.

The app pings out “eCrumbs,” tracking the user’s GPS location via the cellular network on a map, allowing friends and family to keep tabs on the outdoor enthusiast. If the user stops moving for more than five minutes, the app notifies preselected contacts that the person is potentially in distress (the user can give a thumbs up to the app if there’s no emergency).

Road ID also offers ID bands that include the user’s name, city and prescription drug allergies, plus key contact names and phone numbers. Outdoor adventurers can attach the ID band on a wristband, necklace, shoe or fitness wearable. If the user is unconscious or having difficulty communicating in an emergency, the ID band can assist first responders in providing care.

The Wearsafe fob can be attached to clothing and pressed in emergencies.

In a tough situation, sometimes all people need is a little help from their friends. Dubbed as a mobile panic button, Wearsafe combines a small fob with a smartphone app.

By triggering the wearable fob button (or tapping on the screen of an Android or Apple watch linked by Bluetooth to the user’s smartphone), the person can send an alert to predesignated emergency contacts.

When a distress signal is sent, the Wearsafe app records and transmits audio via the smartphone’s microphone, allowing contacts to hear exactly what’s going on. They can then share this information — most importantly, the user’s exact location — with first responders.

“I generally do early-morning long runs that go far from my house,” said Leslie St. Amant, a marathoner from Connecticut and a Wearsafe user.

“I’m running 10 miles out and back, or doing a 15-mile loop, often on busy roads or back roads, sometimes in areas that might feel shady. I feel much more comfortable doing that with my Wearsafe.”

Whenever the great outdoors calls, adventurers can stay safely connected while hiking, biking, running or sailing.

]]><p>Outdoor safety technology can keep adventurers connected to emergency assistance even on remote bike paths, trails and waterways. After wrapping up an afternoon of sun and surfing, Jeffrey Huntley and his buddy were looking for a spot nearby to camp for the night. As they turned the corner onto a service road just out of &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/safety-tech-outdoor-adventurers-2/">Continued</a></p>
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https://iq.intel.com/safety-tech-outdoor-adventurers-2/8 Tips for Traveling with Camera Droneshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/CVVI6uEMBzc/Uncategorizedcamera dronesChase GuttmandronesVicky ThompsonTue, 08 Aug 2017 12:25:19 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=20530Beyond the reach of the longest selfie stick and more intimate than a hovering helicopter, camera drones are the next tech frontier in photography.

Enthusiasm for camera drones has skyrocketed in the last few years. Now, everyday consumers can get professional-grade aerial imagery that was once only possible with a sizeable helicopter — and budget.

Drones are an artist’s dream medium. Freed from earth-bound photography, camera drones allow creative minds to take flight and capture the world from a higher perspective.

Here are eight practical tips for traveling with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) — from choosing the right drone to understanding battery rules when traveling on airplanes.

Image courtesy of Chase Guttman.

1. The Right Tools

Nothing is more important than having the right tool for the job and that means choosing a drone model that best suits a photographer’s piloting and artistic needs.

The drone market runs the gamut, from small reasonably priced drones to high-end cinematography UAVs.

Smaller sized drones are lightweight and highly transportable, perfect for demanding, longer-range trips and capturing far-flung adventures. Able to fit into an already stuffed bag, products like the DJI Spark or the GoPro Karma are affordable options for the intense, run-and-gun traveler.

On the other end of the size spectrum, heftier UAVs such as the DJI Inspire 2 and the Freefly Alta reign supreme. These models require their own special, heavy cases that aren’t so easily lugged from place to place.

What these large and pricey vehicles do have is unrivaled image quality and the most robust features around. Save these guys for short-range jaunts, easily accessible locales or for days when extra hands can help carry equipment.

Treading the middle ground is the DJI Phantom 4 and Yuneec Typhoon H, which has Intel RealSense 3D camera technology that allows the drone to see and avoid obstacles. With their medium size, these feature-rich birds can accompany travelers anywhere they’re able to sling a backpack.

2. Charged Up

Bring multiple drone batteries for the most fulfilling aerial experience. A single battery enables photographers to explore a lot of territory, but there’s nothing worse than a mid-flight dead battery.

Additional batteries give piece of mind and allow photographers to see beyond what they first envision. Grab even more power packs for capturing sweeping cinematic pans.
Given the amount of energy that lithium batteries can retain, these packages of power require their own special care.

Drone batteries can’t be checked in luggage on commercial flights. Make sure to drain lithium polymer (LiPo) batteries of energy before carrying them onboard in the passenger cabin. Also, consider carrying batteries in a LiPo fireproof storage bag for extra safety and protection. Lastly, don’t forget any foreign adapters and converters needed on the road to stay charged up.

3. Extra! Extra!

For more seamless travel, always carry extra parts. Propellers — the most commonly damaged drone part — are the fender benders of the flying world. Often drone models come with additional propellers for this exact reason.

Image courtesy of Chase Guttman.

Have small, extra parts for your UAV on call. After lugging a drone halfway across the planet, the last thing travelers want is an unusable UAV because of a few damaged or missing parts. It’s easy to remedy minor issues with an extra set of parts at the ready.

4. Wrap It

Acquire a specialized case that can take a bruising and protect the drone from the elements.

Look for cases with a hard exterior shell, coupled with a foam-lined interior that divides and surrounds the individual parts of the drone. Having casing designed to the model’s specific dimensions uses the space most efficiently and makes assembling the drone in the field a breeze.

Choose from a variety of case types to create an aerial photography toolkit: pouches, backpacks and roller-style bags. Nowadays, the littlest of drones can slide into a fortified pouch that can be stored within another bag.

Drone backpacks, designed to optimize portability for small- to medium-sized drones, are ideal for hikes and other adventures. UAV backpacks can also be carried on when boarding a flight.

For the big birds, consider hard-shelled roller and briefcase-style bags. These heavier options are perfect for checked baggage or long-term storage.

5. Fly Informed

Do advanced legwork to discover striking locations and drone-approved airspace worthy of the drone’s battery life.

Keeping drone flights safe and legal requires due diligence. Read up and comply with local and federal laws, as they vary widely in different states and countries. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a good starting point for rules on flying UAVs in the U.S.

When location scouting, consume a regular diet of aerial photographs and make a list of inspiring points of interest. Use Google Maps to scout locations from an aerial perspective. Turn to Google Images to help develop a cohesive flight plan. Envision the backdrop and consider how the light will shift throughout the day.

6. Fly Smart

Anyone just getting started with UAVs should first learn how to pilot a craft effectively. The last thing a novice pilot wants to do is crash into a neighbor’s tree.

With lots of practice, the mechanics of the aerial system can become second nature, allowing photographers to focus on more important things — capturing stunning imagery, obtaining breathtaking videos and not demolishing the UAV.

Aerial photographers should consider starting their flying career with a trainer drone before investing in a pricier piece of hardware. Companies like DJI and 3D Robotics help customers to hone their flying skills on virtual flight simulators, keeping their sophisticated camera drones safe.

Finally, think tactically about where to take-off. Leave enough room to make mistakes and still bring the flying machine back to safety.

7. Survey the Scene

Now that the drone is airborne, it’s important to get the lay of the land. Scout the scene from above.

It’s incredibly easy to develop “tunnel vision” as a drone operator, getting so fixated on a certain subject or image that all the magnificent beauty in the scene behind or directly below the UAV gets ignored.

Image courtesy of Chase Guttman.

Encircle the subject, either manually or by employing an automated flight mode, and note where the light, composition and background seem to coalesce.

Journey to outlying locales to uncover unseen vistas. Revisit those locations with an extra battery and tinker with distance and height to further enhance the image frame.

8. Embrace Curiosity

Humans long for the sensation of flight, and drones can inspire awe in children and adults alike.

Expect and embrace the curiosity of strangers toward this remote-controlled, flying camera, whether on a journey across the street or around the globe. Share the visual and technological joys of camera drones with others.

Gaze upward. There’s a revolutionary technology hovering on the horizon, making a dramatic ascent to see the world from a different point of view.

Chase Guttman, author of The Handbook of Drone Photography: A Complete Guide to the New Art of Do-It-Yourself Aerial Photography, is a three-time recipient of the Young Travel Photographer of the Year.

]]><p>Beyond the reach of the longest selfie stick and more intimate than a hovering helicopter, camera drones are the next tech frontier in photography. Enthusiasm for camera drones has skyrocketed in the last few years. Now, everyday consumers can get professional-grade aerial imagery that was once only possible with a sizeable helicopter — and budget. &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/8-tips-for-traveling-with-camera-drones-2/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/8-tips-for-traveling-with-camera-drones-2/">8 Tips for Traveling with Camera Drones</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/8-tips-for-traveling-with-camera-drones-2/Smart Ships Take to the Seashttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/bOI0WYNh3_c/Uncategorizedappscruise techVicky ThompsonTue, 08 Aug 2017 10:42:10 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=20397The cruise ship industry rides the tech tide to entice young, tech-savvy vacationers to set sail on smart ships.

Just like missing the exit on a road trip, it’s easy to get lost on a cruise ship. With 19 decks filled with cabins, restaurants and attractions, the MSC Meraviglia is the length of almost three football fields. It can feel like a small city and vacationers can feel like they need GPS or Google Maps just to get around.

That’s where the ship’s 4,000-plus sensors come in. Using their own device or by waving a smart wristband at 144 strategically placed digital screens throughout the ship, passengers can see where they are and where they want to go, complete with a route.

High-tech cruise ships attract younger travelers who prefer to spend money on experiences instead of material goods. These tech-savvy cruisers don’t necessarily want to disconnect from their devices while at sea.

From checking the MSC for Me app for the day’s activities to looking at one of the digital screens to scope out restaurant menus or book a table, passengers can now experience what Luca Pronzati, MSC Cruises’ chief business innovation officer, calls a huge paradigm shift in the cruise industry.

The MSC Meraviglia offers an app for navigating the 19 decks on the 1,000-foot long cruise ship. Photo courtesy of MSC Cruises.

“It is a game changer,” said Pronzati. “[Guests can] retrieve information and book any service from any area of ship at any time.”

Seaworthy Tech Features

Carnival announced plans to debut shipboard technology later this year on their Princess line while others, like Royal Caribbean, provide wristbands that allow passengers to unlock stateroom doors or pay for on-board purchases.

Swiss line MSC Cruises built Meraviglia to help travelers make the most of their vacation time. For anyone who’s ever been hopelessly disoriented on a ship, the MSC for Me app makes navigating a cruise ship a breeze.

Queues at the excursion desk should become a thing of the past as cruisers scroll through options on their cabin television or with a tablet-bearing crew member and sign up on the spot.

Parents can even geolocate their wristband-wearing children among the more than 5,700 passengers.

“My son does not have any sort of device,” said Luca Biondolillo, MSC Cruises’ chief communications officer. But using the app, Biondolillo can quickly find his young son whether the boy may be playing in the Lego room or swimming in one of the ship’s four pools.

For those visitors who might not have a tablet or smartphone, Biondolillo said “they will still be able to benefit because the technology is available in the cabin through the old-fashioned TV.”

The wristband also opens cabin doors and allows passengers to pay for on-board purchases. Passenger-friendly extras include a quick-find tool for restrooms and elevators.

The galleria ceiling on the MSC Meraviglia is covered by the largest LED dome at sea. Photo courtesy of MSC Cruises.

Other tech features on Meraviglia include an amusement area with virtual reality (VR) Formula 1 race car simulators, a 4D cinema and a promenade ceiling covered by the largest LED dome at sea, projecting an ever-changing digital sky.

Not Just Your Grandpa’s Cruise

While the stereotypical cruiser may be retirees and grandparents, younger people are taking to the sea, rating cruising as a better vacation type than land-based vacations, all-inclusive resorts, tours, vacation house rentals or camping, according to research from the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA).

Nearly 39 percent believe ocean cruises are the best type of vacation.

Boat to the Future

While the technology launched with the christening of the Meraviglia is already beyond typical on-board experiences, “this is only the starting point,” Pronzati said.

“We will be able to further evolve toward a more personalized experience powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide information to each guest relevant to where they are and what time of day it is,” said Pronzati.

Facial recognition technology is in the works so when a crew member encounters a passenger they can address them by name and have their interests and more at their fingertips.

An increasing number of younger tech-savvy travelers are drawn to smart ships. Photo courtesy of MSC Cruises.

This AI tech will also help crew speak to passengers in their language. More than 180 nationalities travel on board MSC Cruises each year. MSC for Me is currently available in six languages, with Chinese coming next.

VR is in the pipeline too, centered on the shore excursion experience. Time in port is limited, Pronzati said. “It’s often spent rushing around and visiting monuments without a lot of quality time.”

Through VR before and after the excursion, passengers can deep dive into a destination, learning more about the places they visit. This can help them appreciate the sights more, said Pronzati.

]]><p>The cruise ship industry rides the tech tide to entice young, tech-savvy vacationers to set sail on smart ships. Just like missing the exit on a road trip, it&#8217;s easy to get lost on a cruise ship. With 19 decks filled with cabins, restaurants and attractions, the MSC Meraviglia is the length of almost three &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/smart-ships-take-seas/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/smart-ships-take-seas/">Smart Ships Take to the Seas</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/smart-ships-take-seas/Esports on the Rise in China with IEM Shanghaihttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/uWGdlpMf0cY/UncategorizedgamingIEM ShanghaiVicky ThompsonMon, 31 Jul 2017 08:25:15 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=20341Esport events like Intel Extreme Masters Shanghai create a positive buzz for gaming in China, a nation once resistant to online games.

Zhou “iAsonu” Hang hoped to become a professional esport athlete, but his parents had different expectations. They wanted him to earn a degree in robotic automation at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, a public university hidden among the dense foliage of China’s Hubei province.

“I wrote them a long letter explaining what esports were and promising them that I wouldn’t abandon my studies forever,” said Hang.

Fortunately, his plea convinced them.

Hang, a professional StarCraft II player, will be center stage when Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Shanghai kicks off on July 27. The event runs through July 30 at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre, where for the first time the tournament will be held in its own 118,000-square-foot gaming hall.

The hall features booths with partners Acer — the official desktop PC and notebook sponsor of IEM Shanghai — as well as HP, Dell, Lenovo and ASUS. Attendees also can experience virtual reality (VR) demos at the event.

“Intel is always pushing the boundary of innovation by delivering amazing experiences for our fans both online and offline worldwide,” said George Woo, Intel’s esports marketing manager.

As part of the gigantic ChinaJoy gaming conference, the festive atmosphere features a big crowd of rowdy fans and cosplayers cheering the contestants on to victory. No matter who wins or loses, the tournament stands out as a beacon of gaming positivity in China.

Shanghai hasn’t always been so smitten with the digital pastime of gaming. In 2004, the city launched a crusade against the blight of internet cafes.

In an effort to prevent young people from playing online games with potentially addictive elements, authorities barred minors under the age of 16 from these facilities, while placing firm restrictions on older teenagers. To enforce the rules, the city used security cameras and computer software, requiring young patrons to enter their identification card numbers to gain entrance to internet cafes.

But that didn’t stop pro gaming. Since then, esports arrived on the scene in a big way, with Chinese fans consuming more streams than any other nation. Along with a massive appetite for gaming, these fans inherited some of China’s old societal stigmas.

“Esport players contend with skepticism and doubt from parents and officials who think digital gaming is unhealthy,” said Marcella Szablewicz, an assistant professor of communication studies at Pace University in New York.

The fear of internet addiction may be driven by China’s school system. Youth must take a single college entrance exam to be admitted to college. Many parents and schools restrict extracurricular activities in order to prepare for this critical test.

Yet slowly but surely, perceptions are changing. By Szablewicz’s count, in 2009 the phrase “internet gaming” appeared in a negative context in 446 news headlines from the Chinese press. But by 2016, that number dwindled to just 38 headlines, implying that the nation’s gaming phobia is declining.

In the meantime, Shanghai has transitioned from a city where no internet cafe was safe into a haven for esports.

“I’ve been living here for three years,” said Hang, who moved to Shanghai after signing with the esport organization Invictus Gaming. “Shanghai is the center of Chinese esports now. I like the city’s modernization.”

One big sign of a shift is the frequency of events in the region. As a harbor town on the Yellow Sea, Shanghai has become a frequent destination for major esport events. The popular game Dota 2 held its Winter Major there last December, and the upcoming IEM event marks the second time the competition has been held in Shanghai in the past four seasons.

From a financial standpoint, these events bring an influx of money into the Chinese economy, with the esports industry generating $7 billion in 2016.

The cultural impact of games creates goodwill as well. Once a shunned activity in China, big communal events present gaming as a positive force for the community. For instance, the inclusion of esports in the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games brings old and new generations of sports fans together.

At IEM Shanghai, one of the main attractions to the event is the rivalry between China and South Korea, with the two Chinese players attempting to dethrone superior Korean StarCraft II players in front of a home crowd. But instead of creating hostility, this tension promotes a sense of nationality and patriotism among the participants.

“I want to play my best for my country,” said Hang. The sport promotes many virtues, he said, including professionalism, growth and a sense of community — things that are appealing to Chinese millennials and government officials alike.

However, the players and fans may reap the biggest boost from the cultural affirmation of esports. According Intel’s Woo, large scale competitive events like IEM Shanghai lend a sense of legitimacy to those who love the hobby of gaming.

“It gives them joy. For the real fans, esports are a passion. So, from that standpoint, yes, they add value to people’s lives,” said Woo.

This holds true for esport athletes and fans not only in China, but around the world.

]]><p>Esport events like Intel Extreme Masters Shanghai create a positive buzz for gaming in China, a nation once resistant to online games. Zhou “iAsonu” Hang hoped to become a professional esport athlete, but his parents had different expectations. They wanted him to earn a degree in robotic automation at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/esports-rise-china-iem-shanghai/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/esports-rise-china-iem-shanghai/">Esports on the Rise in China with IEM Shanghai</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/esports-rise-china-iem-shanghai/Beyond Air Pollution: Smart Cities Offer a Breath of Fresh Airhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/0axcGkfeyBI/UncategorizedBosch MCMSIoTVicky ThompsonThu, 20 Jul 2017 16:43:51 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=20198New hyperlocal air quality monitoring technologies help people find ways to breathe easier.

When a layer of smog blankets an entire city, many people assume that the whole city is polluted. But that’s not always the case. Whether it’s rampant ragweed or a spewing factory, the air might be polluted on one block and breathable a few streets over.

Seven million people die prematurely from health risks every year because of air pollution, according to the World Health Organization. A study found that poor air quality is a byproduct of unsustainable policies in transportation, energy, industry and waste management in the world’s most crowded cities.

Current air quality monitoring (AQM) stations take air samples from just a few places throughout a city and then create a citywide air quality index (AQI). These limited number of AQM stations can’t provide an actionable level of detail down to the city block.

But new systems based on Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and electrochemical sensors are changing how pollution is tracked. New air quality monitoring technologies analyze pollution, pollen and toxins on a street-by-street basis, providing real-time data by time and location.

Getting accurate, up-to-date information about air quality in polluted cities such as Los Angeles, Beijing and New Delhi can make a difference for people living with lung conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

If people know that the air is highly polluted in an area, they can take action such as wearing a breathing mask, traveling a different route to work, altering vacation plans or even staying home.

“People might say, ‘I’m not going to travel there today and expose myself to that substance,’” said Dr. Catherine Grossman, associate professor of internal medicine and pulmonary disease at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.

Accurate pollution reports are critical, but current monitoring systems are too big to be portable or scalable, don’t pinpoint pollution at the source and can’t report real-time data, said Mahesh Chikodi, global leader at Robert Bosch Engineering.

By the time city authorities get air pollution data, two to four hours may have gone by and the air quality may have changed.

“What’s the use of knowing air quality hours later?” Chikodi said.

To make things worse, people often decide to wear an air filter mask based on data coming from 20 miles away, said Suman Sehra, business manager for Intel’s Smart Cities Business Development and segment manager for Intel’s Environmental Monitoring business.

“When air quality is so bad that people have to wear masks,” said Sehra, “they want to know what the air is like where they are, not where they aren’t.”

A Breath of Fresh Air

New air quality monitoring systems measure particulate matter (PM), pollen, chemical pollution and other toxins by city block rather than by large regions covered by current citywide AQI measures. These new systems also measure pollution in parts per billion (ppb) compared to parts per million (ppm) used by older technology.

Using smart sensors, Bosch’s Micro-Climate Monitoring System measures air quality.

Instead of waiting hours, the data is available in seconds, Chikodi said. For instance, Bosch’s Micro-Climate Monitoring System (MCMS) measures air quality by gathering information via connected “smart” sensors with faster data transfer.

These new generation tools collect hyperlocal data that can provide people with block-by-block information so they can map their routes and activities outside.

For example, the new system can suggest users take I-5 to work in Los Angeles instead of I-405, hike at Eisenhower Park instead of Comanche Lookout Park in San Antonio, or wear a mask in Manhattan but not in Brooklyn.

New air quality systems are spreading around the world. Bosch’s MCMS is used in New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world. In Oakland, California, researchers equipped Google Street View vehicles with a fast response pollution measuring platform for a study earlier this year. And in Chicago, a citywide network of sensors mounted on lampposts was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory to monitor a variety of pollutants.

Additional monitoring stations can give a spatial context that is not possible by the limited count of traditional AQM stations. This added sensing capability can now pinpoint high pollution areas using real-time air quality alerts.

That means city planners, factory owners, construction foremen and other professionals can make more informed decisions on how to protect the health of workers, reduce emissions and meet clean air guidelines. Even event planners can use air quality trends to help schedule outdoor activities.

Traditional AQM stations can cost up to $200,000, making them difficult to scale. Bosch’s new MCMS stations cost up to 20 times less, making it much more affordable for cities to install several such stations throughout the city.

Ongoing operating costs also are less expensive because engineers can monitor the sensors remotely as opposed to traveling to each site, Chikodi said.

A Smarter Way to Live

In addition to smart air quality sensors, smart cities uses real-time data, the (IoT), and information and communications technology to improve urban infrastructure and services.

These technologies include smart transportation, smart lighting, parking data apps to find available parking spots and smart energy metering. Smart air quality monitoring systems can work together, for example, with smart transportation systems to improve air quality by optimizing traffic flow in a congested corridor of a town or city, said Sehra.

“If I’m a city planner, I can use this data and optimize the traffic flow within the city,” Sehra said. For example, traffic signals could be switched from red to green to limit emissions from idling cars in specific areas where there’s more pollution.

City authorities also could reroute traffic away from polluted areas, send an alert asking drivers to switch from gasoline to electric power and encourage people to use public transportation, Chikodi said.

The pinpoint accuracy of smart air quality monitoring systems ensures that cities can closely track pollutants emitted by industrial companies, Chikodi said. Then appropriate abatement actions can be taken to improve overall air quality.

“If you know the cause, you can take action,” Chikodi said. “Anything we are able to measure, we can improve.”

Hyperlocal monitoring improves overall air quality, one street at a time. And that’s a breath of fresh air for everyone.

]]><p>New hyperlocal air quality monitoring technologies help people find ways to breathe easier. When a layer of smog blankets an entire city, many people assume that the whole city is polluted. But that’s not always the case. Whether it’s rampant ragweed or a spewing factory, the air might be polluted on one block and breathable &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/beyond-air-pollution-smart-cities-offer-breath-fresh-air/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/beyond-air-pollution-smart-cities-offer-breath-fresh-air/">Beyond Air Pollution: Smart Cities Offer a Breath of Fresh Air</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/beyond-air-pollution-smart-cities-offer-breath-fresh-air/History of VR Linked to Penny Arcadehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/HuUWRhpGh5M/UncategorizedMorton HeiligSensoramavirtual realityVicky ThompsonWed, 19 Jul 2017 12:51:52 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=20162On the brink of a breakthrough moment, virtual reality can trace its roots back to an “experience theater” contraption built in the 1960s.

Recently divorced and new to the U.S., Marianne Gyorgy agreed to go on a blind date. The young journalist from Budapest took a bus to New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal. Arriving at rush hour, she was blocked by mobs of commuters flocking to the exit. She immediately gave up hope of finding her perfect stranger in such a stampede.

He found her instead.

The man was gracefully thin, completely bald and wearing a seersucker suit. After dinner and a movie in Greenwich Village, he slyly mentioned that he’d like to show her an amazing machine in his nearby Washington Square Village apartment.

Gyorgy didn’t know what to expect.

The contraption looked like a big vending machine with a mounted chair facing a hooded canopy. Under the hood was a strange looking viewing area — a headrest invited the visitor to lean forward and peer through View-Master-like lenses into the machine. Atop the giant box sat a colorful sign.

“He turned it on, and the revolving sign was going around,” said Gyorgy. “I thought, ‘Oh! In the United States they have machines instead of stamp collections.’”

The machine was the Sensorama, one of the earliest and most significant VR-like devices created. Built by Morton Heilig in 1962, the “experience theater” machine played a 3D film along with stereo sound, vibrations, aromas and wind, creating one of the first immersive sensory environments.

For the price of a quarter, the curious could sit down inside the little booth and experience one of four movies. The vibrating seat, breeze-blowing fan and smells of the city gave people a sense of rumbling through Manhattan streets on a motorcycle. In another experience, viewers were intoxicated by the aroma of a belly dancer’s perfume as she moved in a close-up 3D performance.

Despite these unique features, the story of Heilig’s ill-fated machine illustrates how VR technology has evolved over a long history of stops and starts.

While the medium is on the cusp of a breakthrough, history has shown that a little more patience may be necessary to see this tech vision through to maturity, according to Gabe Paez, founder of WILD, a VR production agency.

“We’ve been talking about this idea of the digital world colliding with our physical world for a long time,” said Paez. “When we talk about the potential of VR, all of those sci-fi ideas that have been around for many years now seem possible.”

VR’s Almost Forgotten Origins

Although the Sensorama is a product of another era, the tech that made it hum dates back even further. To create the illusion of being somewhere else, the Sensorama relied on an old technique called stereoscopy, which came to prominence in the 19th century.

Most stereoscopic methods show two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. The brain then combines these two-dimensional images to give the perception of 3D depth.

An English physicist named Sir Charles Wheatstone used the idea to invent a gadget called the stereoscope. When someone peeked through its lenses, the little wooden headset created an image with a sense of depth.

For nearly a century, these stereoscopic images were all the rage, giving regular flat 2D photography a run for its money. From 1880 to 1910, Underwood & Underwood, a major stereographic company, churned out 25,000 images per day.

The popular stereoscope created the illusion of depth in photos of city views, celebrities and factories.

The device was sold in drugstores, mail-order catalogs and door-to-door by college students. The hungry viewing public would purchase city views, images of celebrities and newsworthy events, and even “tours” of factories and mills.

“Because stereoscopes were affordable, they became an American pastime and popular form of entertainment. They were much like the internet of its day,” said Colleen Woolpert, a Michigan-based artist who works in stereoscopic photographs.

But in the 1930s, the 3D photo fad fizzled. By then, flat photography and cinema were making big strides due to new compact cameras with cleaner, clearer images, said Woolpert.

For a long time, stereoscopic imagery was relegated to antique stores and library archives. The decline of the industry was a huge obstacle, making it unlikely that future technologies like VR would ever arrive, she said.

Keeping the VR Dream Alive

But virtual hope never dies. Even though interest in stereography long lay dormant, Heilig became fascinated with the forgotten technique.

In his notebooks, Heilig sketched details for immersing people inside of films with the technology, which led to building the first Sensorama prototype.

After he and Gyorgy married, they moved from New York to California with hopes of finding investors. But it was not meant to be. Heilig haggled with entertainment companies from IMAX to Disney, but he never struck a deal.

Morton Heilig, one of the founding fathers of VR, designed and built his own rigs for creating 3D films.

Instead, Gyorgy said three Sensorama units were set up at various tourist destinations in Los Angeles, including the penny arcade at the Santa Monica Pier and the Movieland Wax Museum. The machines did well, but were eventually retired to a storage unit.

“The money dried up, and Mort had no income possibilities. Even today, I’m still paying eight percent interest [on the loans to build the machines],” Gyorgy said.

The future of the Sensorama seemed doomed, marking what appeared to be the end of Heilig’s vision for immersive entertainment.

Almost a Second Chance

However, through a chance encounter, Heilig’s ideas persevered. This was largely due to another pioneer of the VR medium: Scott Fisher.

While Heilig was hustling in Hollywood, Fisher was a student at MIT. Fisher worked in the Architecture Machine Group, building various crude prototypes of VR gear, including headsets and cameras with wide lenses. Just 10 years earlier in 1968, the Sword of Damocles — one of the first VR head-mounted displays (HMDs) — had been created at the university.

One day Nolan Bushnell, the president of Atari, took a tour of the lab. He liked what he saw, and started poaching talent. Fisher received a job offer and accepted it. He went to Sunnyvale, California to work under Alan Kay, the famed computer scientist, fleshing out ideas for mass market immersive technology.

The Sword of Damocles, an early VR head-mounted display, was developed by a team at MIT in 1968.

“I met this crazy guy, Mort Heilig, out here in California and became friends with him,” said Fisher. “I figured building an arcade machine based on what Mort had tried to do so many years ago sounded exciting.”

Just like the Sensorama, Fisher designed a coin-operated machine with stereoscopic vision, binaural sound and even aromas. The main difference was how the experience looked: instead of running on 70mm film, the visuals would be digital, like other arcade games.

But in another unfortunate twist of fate, a corporate shakeup at Atari in 1983 put a halt to the project before it went anywhere.

Even though the heyday of stereographic photography ended and the Sensorama failed to reach a wide audience, the vision for VR survived. The work continues with a new generation of VR innovators eager to create complex digital worlds.

WILD’s Paez believes VR is still evolving because today’s VR technology – from 360-degree cameras and high performance computing to headsets and controllers – is finally getting into the hands of more creators and consumers.

“The first time I put that headset on, I knew that it was something special that can really be meaningful and change our lives,” said Paez.

]]><p>On the brink of a breakthrough moment, virtual reality can trace its roots back to an “experience theater” contraption built in the 1960s. Recently divorced and new to the U.S., Marianne Gyorgy agreed to go on a blind date. The young journalist from Budapest took a bus to New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal. &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/history-vr-linked-penny-arcade/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/history-vr-linked-penny-arcade/">History of VR Linked to Penny Arcade</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/history-vr-linked-penny-arcade/Esports Athletes Get Ready to Rumble in VR Challenger Leaguehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/0xwYiuVQHC8/UncategorizedeSportsgamingIEMIntel Extreme MastersVRVR Challenger LeagueVicky ThompsonWed, 19 Jul 2017 13:57:21 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=20087New virtual reality competition is the next esports obsession.

Last month, Counter Logic Gaming and the Immortals, two of esports’ fiercest rivals, clashed in virtual reality (VR). This was a first for both teams, but if a new VR esport league takes off, it won’t be the last.

Dubbed the VR Challenger League, the upcoming tournament is the product of a partnership between Oculus, Intel and the esports event organizer ESL. The first qualifying bracket began on July 12, and online competitions run through the summer. All of this leads to the final event at an Intel Extreme Masters event in 2018.

“VR esports are still a baby, but we’re raising them into teenagers and preparing them for a professional career,” said Lisa Watts, VR marketing strategist at Intel.

While VR esports will likely experience some growing pains along the way, the show organizers are doubling down to bring this exciting new form of competition to life.

A fresh crop of highly polished VR games, along with a handsome prize pot, are putting VR on the fast track to becoming a premier esports event.

“We hope that by the time Intel Extreme Masters arrives next year, we’re seeing a level of play that’s exciting and worthy of the professional level,” said Watts.

This is a high bar, but one worth reaching for, she said.

To reach the first VR Challenger League finals at IEM next year, players and teams across North America and Europe will compete in The Unspoken from Insomniac Games and Echo Arena from Ready At Dawn Studios.

To ensure that VR esports are ready for primetime, game developers are tuning up their games. Insomniac Games has already made five substantial revisions to The Unspoken since the first of the year. The last update to the wizard-dueling game even added a new character, a female magician who zaps her foes with electricity a la a supervillain.

“There’s a lot of discussion about what’s working and what isn’t,” said Chad Dezern, the game’s creative director at Insomniac Games. “Players are helping us shape the game for high level play.”

In esports, a game’s success depends on a tight-knit community of players. The Unspoken has attracted a small but passionate coterie of VR enthusiasts, with more than 1,000 players showing up at Microsoft stores to compete in The Unspoken VR Tournament last May.

“I expect we’ll have even more interest with the VR Challenger League,” said Dezern. “We have a very steady group of active players who are going to jump in, and we expect newer players to jump in as well.”

Of course, the ceiling for new esport contenders is limited by VR’s nascent install base. At present, only around 1.5 million people own dedicated VR hardware, restricting the number of players who can compete in the tournaments.

At least in the first year, the VR Challenger League will serve as an appetizer to esports mainstays like League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), which have been played in a professional environment for years. But the $200,000 purse will likely pull players into this and future VR competitions. Another thing that will pull esports competitors into VR is Echo Arena, which is one of the games in VR Challenger League tournament and comes free to all Oculus Rift owners when the title is released in late July.

Eventually Watts believes that VR esports will grow to a size where they cannot be denied or ignored. She hopes to see traditional esports developers like Blizzard and Valve create esports for the VR space. For now though, VR esports are in the early stage, and far from attaining that level of legitimacy.

“We wouldn’t be so bold as to say that it’s a professional league, but I think it is an important signal to the entire industry that it’s time to move in this direction,” she said.

]]><p>New virtual reality competition is the next esports obsession. Last month, Counter Logic Gaming and the Immortals, two of esports’ fiercest rivals, clashed in virtual reality (VR). This was a first for both teams, but if a new VR esport league takes off, it won’t be the last. Dubbed the VR Challenger League, the upcoming &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/esports-athletes-get-ready-rumble-vr-challenger-league/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/esports-athletes-get-ready-rumble-vr-challenger-league/">Esports Athletes Get Ready to Rumble in VR Challenger League</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/esports-athletes-get-ready-rumble-vr-challenger-league/Is Artificial Intelligence Prejudiced?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/xlqizjzo6L8/Uncategorizedartificial intelligencebias in AISaffronVicky ThompsonWed, 12 Jul 2017 14:30:32 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=20002If information being fed to a computer is biased, experts say artificial intelligence will be biased too.

Artificial intelligence (AI) may be quicker and more capable than humans, but the one thing it hasn’t yet overcome is bias. It’s true — computers can be as prejudiced as humans. Biased code can produce unintended consequences, including incorrectly stereotyping or racially profiling people.

“Artificial intelligence ultimately has bias baked into its decisions,” he said. This can result from assumptions humans made when designing algorithms that attempt to replicate human judgment, or assumptions machines make when they learn from data.

“If the machine only has information about how a portion of people act, and no knowledge of how the rest of the world speaks, acts or behaves, then we implicitly bake bias into the results produced by artificial intelligence technology,” said Hickl.

Underlying Stereotypes

One example is the growing trend of using “word embeddings” for screening resumes. This technique uses word associations to teach computers how to identify potential job candidates.

If there’s a possibility of bias, some AI systems are designed to ask for a human to examine the results.

Researchers from Cornell University found that some associations made sense, such as the words “female” and “queen.” Other associations, however, introduced prejudice, such as associating the words “female” and “receptionist.” The result was an increase in female resumes being put in consideration only for stereotypical roles.

Bias in AI can cause much bigger problems than misunderstanding gender or age.

A 2016 study by ProPublica analyzed the risk scores of more than 7,000 people who had been arrested in Broward County, Florida in 2013 and 2014. The scores were calculated by an AI tool created by Northpointe and used in many court systems throughout the U.S.

This research showed that 80 percent of the people the tool predicted to commit a violent crime in the following two years did not actually do so.

A significant racial bias inadvertently crept in to the tool’s predictions. The problem? AI mechanics had predicted that African-American defendants would commit additional offenses twice as often as Caucasian defendants. This turned out to be totally wrong.

To specifically address this hiccup in AI tech, Hickl and his team designed a way for Saffron, an AI platform, to examine and explain conclusions. Then if there is the possibility of bias or an error, the system recommends involving a human being to evaluate the results.

Starting with Flawed Data

Understanding why bias occurs is essential to eliminating it. Inaccurate sampling strategies are one of the biggest culprits, resulting in machine learning based on skewed data.

Greater access to smartphones in higher income neighborhoods introduced a bias in reporting potholes.

For example, the City of Boston used AI technology to analyze data collected from the Street Bump project, an app-based program that allowed users to report potholes. Based on the current conditions of the roads, officials wanted know where potholes were most likely to occur.

Surprisingly, the predictions showed significantly more potholes in upper middle-income neighborhoods. Yet a closer look at the data revealed a more modest picture: the streets in those neighborhoods didn’t really have more potholes, the residents just reported them more often, due to their more frequent use of smartphones.

Boston city officials eventually found the perfect solution — having garbage trucks, which drove to all areas of town, collect the required information. When machines only have a portion of the information needed to make correct assumptions, bias is implicitly added to the results, Hickl said.

Test and Question Outcomes

So, how can bias be removed from AI technology? Hickl said the key is to empower the tools to act in the same way that humans do — test assumptions and ask for more evidence.

With its ability to help analyze large volumes of real-time data, bias-free AI technology can make a difference in how we live, work and play.

“AI will be able to give us the guidance and feedback we need to live our fullest potential,” Hickl said.

]]><p>If information being fed to a computer is biased, experts say artificial intelligence will be biased too. Artificial intelligence (AI) may be quicker and more capable than humans, but the one thing it hasn’t yet overcome is bias. It’s true — computers can be as prejudiced as humans. Biased code can produce unintended consequences, including incorrectly &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/is-artificial-intelligence-prejudiced/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/is-artificial-intelligence-prejudiced/">Is Artificial Intelligence Prejudiced?</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/is-artificial-intelligence-prejudiced/Realistic 3D Avatars Get Personalhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/0Ei720lE67k/Uncategorized3D avatar3D body modeling3D simulationAIartificial intelligenceBody LabsRealSenseShapeScaleVicky ThompsonWed, 12 Jul 2017 13:35:04 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19851Body Labs blends 3D camera and sensor technologies with artificial intelligence to scan people so their digital avatars can interact with places, products and each other.

When soap manufacturer Cleo McVicker first developed Play-Doh as wallpaper cleaner, he had no idea he’d invented a product that would become a cornerstone of childhood play. McVicker isn’t alone in stumbling upon genius. In Silicon Valley, it’s a common occurrence.

“Tech companies have to pivot,” said Ramamurthy Sivakumar, vice president and managing director of Intel Capital. “Often, technology gets used in ways that the original inventor had no clue about. That is the history of technology.”

That’s what happened when 3D cameras and sensors first failed to entice consumers. Sivakumar explained that the adoption rate was much lower than anticipated, requiring companies to devise new ways to use the technology — and bring it to consumer devices.

“Our notion is that as we think about the physical and the virtual world coming together,” said Body Lab’s CEO and co-founder Bill O’Farrell, “you need the body to be the digital platform that can transcend those two worlds and live in both of those worlds.”

Consumers could use their digital doppelganger to match clothing sizes with fashion influencers on Instagram, check in with how their body has changed since going paleo or shoot threes on a virtual basketball court against LeBron.

The technology has applications in a variety of markets, ranging from apparel and gaming to autonomous cars and personal fitness. One thing is for certain: customization is quickly becoming king.

“The idea is that you, as a consumer and as an individual, have your digital 3D ID out there, which is like your name and password, but you are really using that to unlock all kinds of different experiences,” said Sivakumar.

“In the last three years, there is extreme personalization happening in every aspect of human life. From designer drugs and personalized healthcare treatments to clothing and shoes, those products will be designed for our usage.”

Sivakumar uses the example of motorcycles, which are mostly designed for male riders. Motorcycle companies are catching on to the idea that women are interested in having their own smaller sized bikes. With a realistic 3D avatar that has each woman’s exact measurements, a 5-foot-9 woman would be able to purchase a custom bike designed differently than one for a woman who stands 5-foot-4.

How Body Modeling Works

Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of Body Labs’ 3D body modeling technology is that the avatar can be created from a 2D photo or video. That’s because neural networks, machine learning and complex algorithms work together behind the scenes, extracting precise measurements without deploying 3D sensors or full-body scans.

Instead, the company uses a broad statistical model that focuses on the breadth of human shape and possible human poses. A scanned image from a photo or video is first sent to the cloud, where Body Labs software assesses where the human’s joints are located in space. Then, the neural networks discern how the person is posed.

“Since we know all the possible geometric shapes a person can be and all the possible movements a person can undertake, we can then align those things and create a highly accurate avatar of that person,” said O’Farrell. “Then we can move that person through a full range of human motion.”

Consumers can see this technology in action by downloading the Mosh Camera smartphone application. The mobile app, which is powered by “human-aware AI,” allows users to create 3D characters or interactive environments from photos. It even has its own filters, a la Snapchat, that make for some fun customizations.

Because consumers don’t have to purchase separate devices or equipment to create 3D avatars, the technology has been more successful than previous 3D technologies like cameras and sensors. Body Labs is currently partnering with leading technology, apparel, automotive and gaming companies to make the technology even more accessible.

Body Labs received investment from Intel Capital investment to explore new uses for Intel RealSense 3D depth camera technology. These efforts are leading to new human-machine interactions.

“We can swap characters out in a video game and have the motion of a certain player apply to me, or inversely, apply my motions to a player,” O’Farrell said.

“We can take a picture of a woman and automatically extract her shape,” he continued. “We can then match the shape of that subject to the influencers on Instagram who share that woman’s same shape, which will give the user a better idea of how certain clothing and clothing sizes will fit.”

The latter example has benefits for companies, too. Apparel companies, for example, battle a 30 percent return rate on merchandise. Choosing the correct size on the first go could help reduce the time and money spent processing those returns.

As people continue to crave customized experiences, 3D scanning technologies will power the future, said Sivakumar. ShapeScale, for example, has already jumped on the bandwagon, offering a scale that uses 3D scanning technology to show where people are losing weight and gaining muscle. The technology is at the tip of the iceberg.

“It is the history of the technology industry to always overestimate the short-term and totally underestimate the long-term,” said Sivakumar, adding that he sees 3D technology playing out in the next five to 10 years.

“Then a lot of the ingredients will be in place to make a huge difference. Companies like Body Labs are building the essential ingredient to making personalization possible.”

]]><p>Body Labs blends 3D camera and sensor technologies with artificial intelligence to scan people so their digital avatars can interact with places, products and each other. When soap manufacturer Cleo McVicker first developed Play-Doh as wallpaper cleaner, he had no idea he’d invented a product that would become a cornerstone of childhood play. McVicker isn’t &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/realistic-3d-avatars-get-personal/">Continued</a></p>
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https://iq.intel.com/realistic-3d-avatars-get-personal/Digital Poets: Can Social Media Save Poetry?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/4kRru_57rZU/UncategorizedAtticusdigital poetryKarli KlossTyler Knott GregsonVicky ThompsonWed, 12 Jul 2017 13:30:43 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19920Savvy social media stars use Instagram, Tumblr and other platforms to resurrect poetry and create a new genre of digital literature.

In early summer, model Karlie Kloss published an Instagram post with a birthday tribute to her boyfriend of five years — Thrive Capital founder and Oscar Health cofounder Joshua Kushner.

“My atoms love your atoms,” the caption read. “It’s chemistry.”

But the scientific love note wasn’t a Kloss original. It also doesn’t belong to a rock musician, film actor — or scientist.

Kloss signed the quote “@AtticusPoetry” — a nod to the poet Atticus and a giant plug of the poet’s work to Kloss’s 6.8 million Instagram followers.

“Poetry is being rediscovered by a younger demographic who might not have been interested in jumping into Tennyson’s Ulysses, but can appreciate a simple aphorism or epigram,” said Atticus, an Instagram sensation who was dubbed as “the world’s most tattoo-able” poet by Galore magazine.

Social media is quickly making poetry not only approachable, but widely available. But is it too late?

Literary reading has held steady at 47 percent among adult readers, but poetry reading declined sharply from 12 percent to 7 percent between 2002 and 2012.

Could Instagram and other social media be the new online beatnik forums needed to resurrect this dying art?

Nearly one-third of online adults use Instagram, according to Pew Research Center, but is it enough to keep poetry alive?

Meet the digital poets who have capitalized on the buzz power of social media to land book deals, advertising campaigns and even a devoted group of tattoo followers. These new romantics are reimagining the art of poetry.

Wild Words

Just four years after writing his first poem in 2013 on a trip to France, the poet Atticus now has more than 370,000 Instagram followers and a just released book of poetry — Love Her Wild.

On Instagram, every week or so, Atticus interrupts his usual poetry programming with an image of a tattoo — someone who carved his words on the small of their back or ankle or rib cage.

“Poetry seems to be experiencing a renaissance online,” said Atticus, who does not show his face on social media. This fall, he’ll be touring — in a mask — to promote his new book. He hides his face not only to remain anonymous, but also to encourage himself to write what he truly feels.

“Social media has provided a channel to connect directly with an audience, which can provide almost instantaneous feedback,” Atticus said.

“On the one hand, you see immediately what resonates and what does not. On the other, you risk being constantly influenced by the responses you get and therefore not always writing in a way that is true to yourself.”

Social Media, the Muse

Montana-based poet, author and photographer Tyler Knott Gregson also uses social media to promote his work. He began writing poetry at 12, long before digital feedback was on the table.

His ongoing Typewriter Series, posted daily on social media, features a brief stanza or two typed on a scrap of paper.

He now boasts more than 320,000 Instagram followers (as well as a huge fan base on Tumblr and Twitter), which he credits in helping to publish three bestselling poetry books, including Wildly into the Dark.

“Without the ability to grow an organic and grassroots support base on social media, I would have been asking for a book deal with only hope on my side,” said Gregson, whose poetry was featured in Ralph Lauren’s Denim & Supply visual storytelling campaign.

“Social media gave me proof that people cared, people would be interested and that sales would come. That’s invaluable,” he said.

His exposure on social media also led to other retail partnerships beyond Ralph Lauren. Nordstrom featured the poet writing a Father’s Day poem for his dad, Glenn “Goose” Gregson, a Boston Red Sox Latin American pitching coordinator.

Gregson attributes his literary and promotional success to digital advancement and sharing on social media.

“The ability to share it digitally means it’s reaching people in places I never could otherwise,” Gregson said.

Digital Inspiration

Tyler Mills, an assistant poetry professor at New Mexico Highlands University, is not only finding value in the digital space — she’s found a way to incorporate it into her own poetry.

“Digital media can become a means of inspiration during the research process,” said Mills, author of the award-winning poetry book Tongue Lyre. “It can also lead to poems that engage directly with the language produced and archived by digital media.”

Her poem “H-Bomb” reflects on the first thermonuclear bomb detonated by the U.S. military in the Marshall Islands in 1952.

“The poem brings in the language of a Google Maps search for an island that was destroyed by this explosion,” said Mills.

“I wanted to re-create the process of looking for it to really demonstrate its absence.”

Using disheartening search error messages, Mills captures the loss of Elugelab, the island that was vaporized during the detonation of the hydrogen bomb:

We could not calculate directions between Johnson, VT, and Elugelab.

We could not calculate directions between Tokyo, Japan, and Elugelab.

Search nearby, e.g., “pizza.”

Your search for “pizza” near Elugelab, Enewetak Atoll, RMI, did not match any locations.

Make sure all words are spelled correctly.

“Poetry is one of the oldest forms of human expression,” said Mills. “I think it will be with us and adapting to new ways of sharing our words for time to come.”

Future Economics of Poetry

With followers in the hundreds of thousands — and sometimes up to five posts per day — Gregson hardly fits the stereotype of the reclusive poet.

“Poetry was a dirty word in publishing for a very long time,” said Gregson. “I think the spread of poetry through social media channels is proving to publishers, and self-publishers alike, that there is an interest, and that there is a way to monetize it.”

With the massive rise in digital consumption, it’s not unusual to wonder if fingertip poems will be the future of poetry.

“What’s nice is that this kind of bite-size poetry becomes a gateway to the classics and more traditional poetry,” said Atticus, pointing out that the social movement is waking up thousands of young writers who before didn’t have a forum or desire to write.

“Journalism helped shape Hemingway’s unadorned prose. It will be interesting to see how these new digital forums affect the writers of our future.”

]]><p>Savvy social media stars use Instagram, Tumblr and other platforms to resurrect poetry and create a new genre of digital literature. In early summer, model Karlie Kloss published an Instagram post with a birthday tribute to her boyfriend of five years — Thrive Capital founder and Oscar Health cofounder Joshua Kushner. “My atoms love your &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/digital-poets-can-social-media-save-poetry/">Continued</a></p>
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https://iq.intel.com/digital-poets-can-social-media-save-poetry/Experts Explore How 5G Could Connect the Unconnectedhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/1UyTPz1YWSM/Uncategorized5Gdeveloping nationsVicky ThompsonFri, 07 Jul 2017 12:00:20 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19743Experts study socioeconomics and low-cost technologies to bring connectivity to rural towns and villages that currently lack internet access.

With so many smartphones around, it’s hard to believe that more than half the world’s population still has no broadband connection. As 5G, the next generation wireless network, becomes available in 2020, some experts are exploring how it can connect billions of people who currently can’t get internet access.

By researching unconnected locations in the world and applying new approaches to technology, experts can help 5G reach rural communities for the first time.

“As social scientists focusing on 5G, our core objective is to understand what kinds of changes are possible and likely from a social standpoint,” says Maria Bezaitis, a senior principal engineer on Intel’s Market Pathfinding team, which is part of Next Generation Standards.

She and her research team study social and economic aspects of places that remain unconnected. Their work could help 5G network technology developers and service providers figure out the best way to initially connect these communities.

“It’s important to frame this as a question, rather than assuming 5G would be a good thing in all cases,” Bezaitis said.

Of course, most people don’t think about their network, just whether it works or not.

Bezaitis said 5G developers are still working through requirements such as speed, latency, efficiency and reliability, but her team wants to understand if and how these characteristics matter to people who are presently unconnected.

More than half of the world doesn’t have access to the internet.

“We need to know the qualities or characteristics what would make 5G relevant to people who are supposed to benefit from it,” she said.

Connecting the Unconnected

Where 4G was about moving data faster wirelessly, 5G is poised to bring more powerful internet connections to personal devices and machines that use cloud computing services.

While it may be economically unfeasible for telecommunication companies to build new broadband towers for every rural village around the world, some see the roll out of 5G as an opportunity to find innovative ways for connecting the unconnected.

Bezaitis’ team is looking at wireless internet service providers emerging in Western markets that rely on low-cost network technologies that can be quickly and easily deployed.

“These technologies may not yet qualify as 5G in terms of speed, for example, but they are setting up infrastructures that are capable of delivering compelling service levels to end-users at a lower-cost than usual,” Bezaitis said. “As we think about poorly connected or unconnected populations and regions, these models may provide an effective starting point.”

Unconnected populations in the U.S. are offering clues on how people learn, adapt and use internet services, she said.

“The question we want to ask is how will people survive and thrive within networks?”

With more of those questions answered through field research, developers of 5G technologies will have a better sense on how to approach connecting new areas.

Only 15.9 percent of Americans lack access to the internet, while other places in the world have very high offline populations, including 93.2 percent in Bangladesh, 71.6 percent in Thailand and 54.2 percent in China. A study by McKinsey & Company stated that poor infrastructure in rural areas and other factors impede internet adoption in these places.

Approximately 76 percent of India’s population lives in small rural villages across the country, and they remain without broadband internet connections, according to Sundararajan Srinivasan, senior director of Intel’s Next Generation and Standards in India.

Approximately 750 million people live in 650,000 villages, each of which has a population of 1,200 or fewer. The goal of the project is to help villagers understand the advantages of advanced connectivity, said Srinivasan.

Building towers in rural communities can be costly, creating a barrier to bringing internet to areas.

The power grid in many areas is unreliable, so infrastructure and end devices must use low power. What’s more, he said, the broadband network must be extremely low cost, since much of the population lives beneath the poverty line.

“The distances are very long, and building all those towers to keep repeating the signal gets very costly,” he said.

Frugal 5G

To overcome some of these barriers and lay the groundwork for full 5G service, the project will use what he calls “frugal 5G,” an enhancement of 4G wireless technology that is not as fast but meets internet broadband connectivity needs, costs less and provides a path toward 5G.

“We still call it 5G because it pushes the boundary of communications into these areas which have no, or very little, connectivity,” Srinivasan said.

He said that 5G is designed to connect devices that compute and communicate, including smartphones as well as machines that autonomously operate with other machines. However, most places connecting to the internet for the first time will require only basic services, and could evolve later to use 5G’s Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities.

The frugal 5G project aims to identify services that are practical for local people. The hope is that the more villagers learn about broadband, the more they will push for services — eventually forming a market to pique the interest of telecom companies.

“Once villagers experience broadband, it can stimulate a virtuous cycle of growth and opportunity,” he said.

Currently, villagers must take a bus to the utility’s regional office to pay in person, a trip that can take an entire day. The project, started by ITT Bombay in 2016, set up a computer kiosk in the village of Bahadoli with a wireless broadband connection, enabling customers to pay their electricity bills online without leaving their village. Srinivasan said it’s something that could benefit more villages across India.

“They don’t trust paying by mail,” he said. “Checks to utilities sent by post may not get promptly acknowledged. Even in urban areas, people prefer paying in person and getting an immediate receipt for the payment.”

Internet connection could create opportunities for people in rural areas to sell their goods and services online.

Although initial networks may be set up with enhanced 4G or frugal 5G, telecom vendors could eventually roll out full-scale 5G networks, enabling more and better services.

Access to reliable internet connections could benefit the education system in India. The ability to affordably view video could enable a teacher in a distant city to teach students in a small village. Today, many students must walk miles to the nearest school, a hardship that leads to a high drop-out rate, said Srinivasan.

Improving Rural Economies

Looking back at the 2010 roll out of existing 4G networks helps these network experts in studying how to connect more areas to the internet.

For example, as Indonesia’s 4G network continues to expand, the price of 4G phones are dropping, creating a huge surge in internet use and ecommerce. As of 2016, 30 percent of the population had internet access, compared to only 11 percent in 2010, according to Pew Research Center.

Internet access can benefit micro entrepreneurship in rural areas, according to Susan Faulkner, senior research scientist on Intel’s Market Pathfinding team, which is part of Next Generation Standards.

“In developing countries, people often have lots of little jobs,” Faulkner said. “They are trying to earn money any way they can. More access to the internet can lead to more opportunities to sell their goods or services to more people.”

As 5G development continues, experts like Bezaitis, Faulkner and Srinivasan are applying curiosity and new approaches to connecting parts of the world for the first time.

Bezaitis said it’s important to keep an open mind.

“We’re not sure exactly how this plays out,” she said. But it is intriguing and she’s excited to play a part.

]]><p>Experts study socioeconomics and low-cost technologies to bring connectivity to rural towns and villages that currently lack internet access. With so many smartphones around, it’s hard to believe that more than half the world’s population still has no broadband connection. As 5G, the next generation wireless network, becomes available in 2020, some experts are exploring &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/experts-explore-how-5g-could-connect-unconnected/">Continued</a></p>
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https://iq.intel.com/experts-explore-how-5g-could-connect-unconnected/Dumpster Diving Robots: Using AI for Smart Recyclinghttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/KlQubRSROR8/UncategorizedAMP Roboticsartificial intelligenceBulk Handling SystemsrecyclingVicky ThompsonThu, 06 Jul 2017 09:18:04 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19730Recycling facilities use robotic sorting stations and object-recognition technology to identify and put garbage in its proper place.

Filled with intricate mazes of high-speed conveyor belts carrying yesterday’s garbage, high-tech recycling centers use sophisticated sensors to sort plastic from paper from aluminum. While this technology may streamline sorting, it’s not smart or nimble enough to finish the job.

Behind the scenes, recycling workers continue to sort the materials, making sure cereal boxes don’t mix with soda cans. And because this isn’t just a dirty job, but a mind-numbingly tedious one, there’s particularly high turnover at modern recycling centers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But the future of smart recycling is looking brighter. Spider-like robotic arms, guided by cameras and artificial intelligence (AI) — think of it as facial-recognition technology for garbage — are helping to make municipal recycling facilities (MRFs) run more efficiently.

“I think the way we move waste recovery forward is by creating new, innovative ways to process material,” said Thomas Brooks, director of technology for Bulk Handling Systems (BHS), which produces the Max-AI robotic sorter. “That is how we’ll get others involved, and how we’ll get more material recycled.”

Through deep learning technology, robotic sorters use a vision system to see the material, AI to think and identify each item, and a robotic arm to pick up specific items. This new technology is a critical piece in making recycling systems more profitable, said Brooks.

Waste Not

Waste is a massive problem: the world generates 1.3 billion tons of municipal solid waste each year, according to the World Bank. By 2025, that figure is expected to hit 2.2 billion tons.

What’s worse, recycling efforts aren’t helping as much as people assume. For instance, a scant 14 percent of plastic is recycled globally. In the U.S., roughly a third of all waste is recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a figure that has been static for a decade.

Conventional sorters have improved the recycling process, but it’s not enough, said Brooks. Sorters identify material composition through infrared cameras using optical sensors, then mechanical sorters, such as blowers, arrange the garbage. But at many MRFs, recycling workers are needed to segregate it further.

After recyclables are sorted, processed and baled, MRFs may sell the materials to brokers or manufacturing plants, which have specific requirements around what kind of materials they’ll take.

For example, a plastic clamshell salad package is made from the same material as a plastic water bottle. To an infrared camera, that clamshell and water bottle look the same, because they’re made from the equivalent type of plastic. However, the MRF often can’t sell both materials to the same broker because they might refuse material with food contamination.

But computer vision systems, the brains that power new robotic sorters, can easily tell the difference between similar materials, said Matanya Horowitz, founder and CEO of AMP Robotics.

Horowitz was a graduate student at CalTech when he realized recycling sorting systems are ripe for the deep learning techniques he was studying.

“You need a computer vision system that understands this is a carton even though it might be covered in dirt, even though it might be torn, or even though it might be half-stuck under some other piece of material,” Horowitz said.

His startup now supplies the Alpine Recycling facility in Denver, Colorado with a robotic sorter.

These advanced recycling sorters use the same computer vision honed by companies to power highly automated manufacturing processes, such as building computer chips. However, sorting paper from plastic can be more complicated.

“A human would say ‘these are the types of features I’m looking for’ and then program those into the algorithms to try and find those features,” said Jeff McVeigh, vice president and general manager of visual computing products at Intel. “The computer vision would then make assumptions that this was the type of object that I cared about.”

This identification process works well when materials are extremely orderly and predictable, but the waste in a recycling center is a jumbled, unpredictable mess — even after it has been sorted mechanically.

Identifying a greasy pizza box from a mangled can, neither of which assumes the same orientation or placement on the conveyor belt more than once, requires building out a large representative dataset. Using thousands of images of trash in different positions can help train the neural network, ultimately allowing it to learn on its own, said McVeigh.

The Future

Though AI is still new to trash sorting, proponents believe it could be used for more than just quality control. MRFs are filled with a maze of conveyors and sorting systems that run in a matrix designed to maximize recycling output based on the average mix of materials received.

A robotic sorter uses AI to learn how to identify and sort cartons from other materials on a recycling center conveyor belt. Image courtesy of AMP Robotics.

In fact, the same computer vision cameras that power robotic sorters could be used to configure the conveyor layout, optimizing the sorting equipment matrix in real-time to match the flow of materials coming into the facility. As the percentage of plastic waste grows, so would the capacity to sort it, but if the amount of paper increases, more paper sorting would come online.

“Ultimately this [AI and robotic application] is where recycling and waste management is going,” said Bryan Staley, CEO of the waste industry research organization Environmental Research & Education Foundation. But, he cautions, these robots have to prove themselves, operationally and financially, before significant numbers of MRFs invest in them.

“I’m a believer,” said Brent Hildebrand, vice president of recycling at Alpine Recycling. “Based on progress that AMP Robotics has made in the last year, I think it’s going to be something MRFs across the country can use.”

Waste management may not seem like a natural industry for the adoption of AI — and indeed, it is too early to know how widely it will be integrated — but robotic sorting promises to equip machines with a depth of discerning that older sorting equipment may never attain.

And it may even someday help municipalities run their recycling facilities more efficiently and profitably. And that’s not trash talk.

After receiving his first laptop at age 13, Metro Boomin quickly became a prolific music producer. But little did he know a decade later he’d craft an anthem for the world’s top tennis women’s champion, Serena Williams.

This past spring, Metro got the call from Intel to capture sounds of Williams playing tennis: her powerful serve, the collision of tennis balls against her racket strings, the ball bouncing rhythmically on the ground before her serve and her fast shuffling footwork.

Metro mixed those iconic sound effects and shaped them into a thunderous beat. The result is “Champion Sound.”

Shortly after she filmed the “Outdated Equipment” TV commercial for Intel, and just prior to taking a hiatus from tennis, Williams met with Metro in a studio to record sounds. The song and behind-the-scenes videos combined to attract more than 5 million views online in the first two months.

“The last time I used environmental sounds to make a beat was probably in high school for some science class,” said the 24-year-old record producer, songwriter and DJ from St. Louis, Missouri.

Legend has it that Metro’s mother bought him his first laptop. She would often drive the eight hour trip from St. Louis to Atlanta so that he could collaborate with artists he met online while in high school. He said his laptop allows him to be creative anytime, anywhere the mood strikes.

“I work in the studio a lot, but I also like to pull my laptop out of my bag anytime I feel inspired,” he said. “Ideas always just come to my mind and having something portable and powerful enough as if I was in the studio is very key to what I do.”

He said he had to make a great beat that Williams loves. One that gets her fired up every day.

“It’s taking the art from her world and merging it with what I do.”

He took each recorded sound, chopped them up and added other sounds from his digital repertoire.

“The actual beat is the ball bouncing and the racket hitting the ball.”

He said the tennis sounds jump out and spark emotions, thoughts and images that are different from just drum and clap sounds. They sound even more interesting when reversed or played in a pattern.

“I like to manipulate sounds in all types of ways. Like taking all the grunts in tennis and putting some echo on it. Or change the pitch on the sound effects to make them sound like different things. It’s really endless where you can go with it.”

Williams has 39 Grand Slam titles, including 23 singles titles, the most Grand Slam wins by a tennis player in the Open Era. Despite missing Wimbledon, the U.S Open and other 2017 tournaments – she recently married and is expecting a child – she is omnipresent in TV commercials and print ads.

“Serena is a world champion,” said Metro. “I want to be a champion. Who would not want to be a champion?”

That motivated him to “put something together that will get her fired up for a match, and she’s going to want to warm up to it every day.”

Next time Williams steps out on the court carrying her oversized racket bag, “Champion Sound” could be what’s blasting through her headphones.

]]><p>Digital mix master and music producer Metro Boomin takes original sounds of Serena Williams’ smashing forehand to create “Champion Sound.” After receiving his first laptop at age 13, Metro Boomin quickly became a prolific music producer. But little did he know a decade later he’d craft an anthem for the world&#8217;s top tennis women&#8217;s champion, &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/metro-makes-music-sounds-tennis-star-serena-williams/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/metro-makes-music-sounds-tennis-star-serena-williams/">Metro Makes Music from Sounds of Tennis Star Serena Williams</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/metro-makes-music-sounds-tennis-star-serena-williams/How Student Makers Solve Real-World Problemshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/pVBYoekc2pc/UncategorizedDale DoughertyMaker MediaMaker ShareVicky ThompsonThu, 29 Jun 2017 09:34:14 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19463Student makers tackle real-world challenges with Maker Share missions, creating innovative tech solutions driven by hands-on learning and a passion to make a difference.

Whenever teenager Hannah Edge suffered an asthma attack, it often resulted in a trip to the emergency room for a spirometry test. The bulky diagnostic machine, which tests lung function, always helped her recover. She wondered if she could build a small portable measuring device that she could use at home, something that could also help other asthma patients avoid regular trips to the hospital.

Edge embodies the creative and problem-solving spirit of the maker movement. At only age 15, she founded SpiroEdge, a start-up medical device company. Her portable lung function analyzer could potentially help patients who suffer from asthma, a respiratory condition that affects 25 million people in the U.S.

“A lot of makers begin by solving a problem that’s important to them,” said Dale Dougherty, founder and CEO of Maker Media. “As they get better, they’re able to widen that scope and look at other people and help them solve problems.”

Now the maker movement is reaching out to students with the launch of Maker Share, an online community for students, teachers and makers interested in projects that have social impact. Organized by Maker Media and Intel, community members can create and share portfolios of their projects, and find learning resources to go deeper in understanding how technology works.

The main attraction of Maker Share centers on missions, which help students focus their creative passion by making projects that solve real-world problems, from health issues to sustainable power solutions.

“Collaboratively, we can solve problems that may not be solved by business today or by other means, even researchers,” said Dougherty.

The introduction of Make: Magazine in 2005 helped to define and chronicle the rise of the maker movement. This tight-knit community of DIY tech innovators shares projects and resources on the magazine’s website and gathers at nearly 200 Maker Faires held in 38 countries worldwide each year.

Educational institutions and libraries joined the movement by creating makerspaces, filled with 3D printers, embeddable computers, building materials and tools to fuel the creativity of student tinkerers, said Dougherty.

All Hands On Tech

The amount of new technical information is doubling every two years, making hands-on tech education even more critical for students today, according to educators Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, creators of the Shift Happens (Did You Know?) video series that explains how fast technology is changing the world — especially education.

“For students starting a four-year technical college degree, this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study,” said Fisch.

A research study conducted by the University of Oklahoma on makerspaces shows that during hands-on learning, students go through a “rinse and repeat” process, discovering how technology works through trial and error.

“When you allow students to do the types of projects that they actually care about, they are far more motivated to learn the skills in order to do it,” said Rajiv Mongia, director of Intel’s maker outreach programs.

Dale Dougherty (second from left) and Rajiv Mongia (kneeling) help prepare young makers with the tech skills needed to become effective innovators.

Unlike traditional classroom learning, in which teachers and textbooks are the primary source of information, Mongia said makerspace environments inspire students to learn new things by seeking information on their own. The University of Oklahoma study found that self-directed learning helps students develop the 4Cs of innovation: critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.

Dougherty said the maker movement can eliminate boredom by more fully engaging students in hands-on projects that they are excited about.

“School is too boring for many kids, and if they’re bored they’re not learning,” he said. “Making is really about engaging kids — engaging them creatively, engaging them technically, engaging them with their body and mind. That’s a pretty big difference from the way school exists today.”

Solving Real-World Problems

Dougherty said Maker Share missions are structured to help students develop problem-solving skills to make a difference in the world.

One mission idea came from a mother who wrote to Dougherty asking if someone could build a device that would allow Malia, her 11-year-old daughter living with cerebral palsy, to communicate with others.

“That’s the perfect example of a mission — to improve the life of a single person,” Dougherty said. “I think others would want to help figure that out.”

Within hours of the launch of Maker Share, Mongia was contacted by an old high school friend who saw the Intel director’s profile on the site. The Malia project had special meaning for his friend, whose son has a similar challenge with people understanding his speech.

“Within 24 hours of the launch of this community, we already created one tangible connection between someone looking for a solution for his son and a mission that makers were trying to solve,” said Mongia.

Edge, the young maker who wondered if spirometry testing could go portable, had no experience with prototyping a medical device, but living with asthma fueled her passion to solve a problem.

Hannah Edge was only 13-years-old when she created a small portable device to measure lung capacity.

Spirometry, a common lung function test, measures how much and how quickly patients can move air out of the lungs. Edge’s prototype helps both patients affected by respiratory disorders and high-performance athletes to determine lung capacity and detect changes in lung function. Her portable SpiroEdge analyzer can send lung function data directly to a physician, which ultimately could reduce emergency room visits.

Two years ago, the then 13-year-old freshman at Dublin High School in Dublin, California spent months researching how to measure lung capacity and scale down the technology to a hand-held device.

Edge used computer-aided design (CAD) and 3D printing to create a portable, inhaler-sized device. Then she programmed an Android app to capture real-time data from air pressure sensors. Using a personal Bluetooth code to ensure safe connection, the device sends lung capacity results to a physician through secure Google cloud storage.

“I think the most rewarding part of being an innovator is receiving positive feedback about my work and being able to improve people’s lives, and potentially make a positive impact in medicine or public health,” said Edge.

Now age 15, Edge runs her own medical device startup company with the help of cofounder and CTO Rami Abousleiman, an electrical and computer software engineer. The company is still in the development phase, working on a second prototype of SpiroEdge with more features.

“Working with SpiroEdge has really helped me grow and develop critical skills such as effective time management, navigating through issues, creating an action plan and applying my resources,” said Edge.

SpiroEdge, made by teenager Hannah Edge, makes it easy for asthma sufferers to test lung function.

Maker Share plans to showcase the work of student makers like Edge with the intention of inspiring others to share their ideas for technologies that can positively impact society.

“Maker Share allows anyone to build a portfolio of work that demonstrates their capabilities and we get to know them not through grades per se, but actual achievements and accomplishments,” said Dougherty.

Future of Tech Education

Intel’s Mongia believes that the skills students learn through maker projects will help them become successful innovators in the fourth industrial revolution.

“In the first three industrial revolutions, people were often challenged to get their hands on the technologies necessary to innovate. As a result, innovation was limited to those that had access to the financial or knowledge resources for them to pursue their dreams,” said Mongia.

Now is a critical time for youth to develop innovation skills, including physical computing, coding, design thinking, creativity and teamwork, Mongia said. Collaboration spaces like Maker Share and other hands-on tech youth programs like the Make Tomorrow program, which is part of the new Intel Innovation Generation initiative, help prepare future innovators.

Today’s maker movement provides easy access to the building blocks needed to innovate and create new tech solutions, helping students to solve real-world problems.

Photographer Greg Downing thought renting a donkey would be a good way to travel up the narrow cliffs to the lost ruins of Petra. After all, it’s a steep climb to the archaeological park in Jordan, plus an additional 850 steps just to enter the Monastery.

Unfortunately, the donkey didn’t agree.

The creature bucked and brayed the whole way up the cliff, threatening to throw Downing off its back. To keep the donkey moving, a Bedouin child ran behind, striking the beast with a stick. Hopping from rock to rock, they approached the rose-red city, recently named one of the new seven wonders of the world.

Donkeys are a common form of transportation through the steep cliffs and narrow steps to reach Petra.

The ancient structures of Petra include thousands of little domiciles and tombs carved into the sandstone cliffs. Downing traveled there to capture images of the Treasury, an ornately carved monument. Adventure movie lovers may recognize it as the resting place of the Holy Grail in the film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

However, this was not a typical travel photography assignment. Downing takes photography to the extreme, capturing multiple images that he stitches together into virtual reality (VR) experiences that inspire viewers to protect the natural world.

“As an artist, I’ve always been interested in making photography three-dimensional,” said Downing, who has spent the past 20 years traveling on assignment to far-flung destinations. His work has been displayed in the American Museum of Natural History, the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

His VR journeys have invited viewers to soar over the flying buttresses of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, descend into the San Andreas Fault in California and venture through Icelandic lava tubes with the singer Bjork.

By creating photographs that people can step inside, Downing educates and inspires awareness of real environmental issues. He wants audiences to see the world from new perspectives.

Using Superhero Tech for the Global Good

Downing, 45, gravitates toward projects that will make lasting impressions.

Similar to how Ansel Adams’ photographs of the Sierra Nevada mountains convinced President Roosevelt to found Kings Canyon National Park in 1940, Downing believes that today’s immersive technology should be used to benefit the environment.

“A lot of big social changes were due to photography,” said Downing. “I wanted to find a way to make an impact with visual effects.”

Greg Downing travels the world to capture nature in VR.

He hasn’t always held this perspective. For several years, Downing worked in Hollywood doing special effects on blockbuster films like Spider-Man 3, I Am Legend and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. After building one too many virtual versions of New York City, he said he grew tired of watching some action hero blow up his work.

Together with Eric Hanson, another visual effects expert, he founded xRez Studio in 2006. They combined forces to work on projects with an environmental impact, using gigapixel panoramic photography, LIDAR-based digital terrain modeling and 3D computer rendering to help the U.S. National Park Service study the problem of rockfalls at Yosemite National Park.

More than 70 photographers joined together on the project, taking more than 10,000 images to create a detailed photographic panorama now used by park service search and rescue teams, as well as geologists to study rockfall in the valley. If printed, the 90,000-pixel wide panoramic image would be 50-feet long.

A continued call to the great outdoors drove Downing to capture spherical photos of Antelope Canyon in Arizona and record the New Mexico desert for Pull of the Moon, a collaborative art project created by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei and Navajo artist Bert Benally.

“We were actually in a volcano together last summer,” said VR producer Peter Martin, who recently collaborated with Downing to capture the Smithsonian American Art Museum in VR for Intel.

“He is full of adventure and takes the challenge.”

Taking Photos that People Can Explore

These days, Downing is mainly focused on VR, infusing age-old photographic techniques with the newest technologies.

“Greg is a photo scientist,” said Rajeev Puran, a business development manager at Intel. “He takes still photographs of locations, whether with a camera or with drones, and turns them into 3D environments.”

If Downing is a scientist, then his science is photogrammetry: a technique first conceived by Leonardo da Vinci, which applies measurements to photos to create 3D images.

Not only does he take pictures of a landscape, but Downing also measures the distances between objects. Then using a computer, he diligently reconstructs everything, one-to-one.

Because they faithfully mimic reality, Downing’s VR creations are helpful in educating people on the importance of environmental issues. Just last month, Downing finished production on a documentary about Greenland’s melting glaciers for PBS.

From 360 Tourist to VR Traveler

Perhaps Downing’s sympathy for the planet originated from his fond first memories of backpacking across Europe. In his 20s, he set off to shoot 360-degree panoramas of Roman ruins, carousing on hostel rooftops during the warm evenings.

He developed a fondness for shooting tiny medieval French villages in the Alps. His favorite was Bussana Vecchia, which had been nearly destroyed in a major earthquake a century earlier. The roof of the village church had collapsed, so that the fresco walls opened to the sky.

For Downing, these youthful excursions were the beginning of his fascination with the world and now he wants to share those experiences with the public through the medium of VR.

“The more I learn about the special places in the world, the more incredible it all seems,” he said.

With VR technology, almost everyone can participate in his incredible adventures.

]]><p>From the sandstone dwellings of Petra to the sheer granite walls of Yosemite, computational photographer Greg Downing captures awe-inspiring places in VR. Photographer Greg Downing thought renting a donkey would be a good way to travel up the narrow cliffs to the lost ruins of Petra. After all, it’s a steep climb to the archaeological &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/inspiring-love-nature-vr/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/inspiring-love-nature-vr/">Inspiring a Love of Nature Through VR</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/inspiring-love-nature-vr/New Films Use Virtual Reality to Immerse Movie Fanshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/spjlRHDyWws/UncategorizedCreateVRLe MuskSony PicturesSpider-Man: Homecomingvirtual realityVRVR moviesVicky ThompsonThu, 27 Jul 2017 16:58:41 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19553Leading filmmakers use 360-degree video, 3D-game-like environments, immersive sound, head mounted displays, motion chairs and even scent emitters to pull movie fans into the action.

In one of the summer’s most anticipated movies, Dunkirk opens to hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops surrounded by enemy forces. Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea, they face an impossible situation as the enemy closes in.

But this intense theatrical experience doesn’t end when the final credits roll.

Movie goers can experience the harrowing miracle evacuation of troops by land, sea and air – all from the safety of their living room – thanks to the magic of virtual reality (VR).

And it’s just the beginning of the latest trend to hit Hollywood and content creators around the world: virtual reality experiences (VREs) that offer 360-degree, immersive experiences to pull fans into the action.

Capitalizing on successful films like Oscar-contender Dunkirk and Spider-Man: Homecoming, VREs bring stories to life for movie fans long after they’ve left the theater. VR is even poised to become the newest film medium with the release of Le Musk, the first VR multi-sensory feature film.

Through the Dunkirk VR Experience, fans can experience how civilian small boats helped save Allied soldiers trapped on the beach in Dunkirk, France. Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Industry experts say the total VR market is expected to reach $80 billion by 2020. A growing piece will belong to cinematic endeavors.

“Technology is going to change future of filmmaking, as virtual reality has changed the equation,” said Ravi Velhal, a media technology strategist at Intel and VR Society board member who collaborated on all three film projects.

“It has expanded boundaries, defined new expressions for storytellers, and brought new immersive multi-sensory experiences for audiences, making them a part of the story to explore and expand new dimensions,” said Velhal.

A Virtual Dunkirk Miracle

Save Every Breath: The Dunkirk VR Experience propels viewers into the action on land, sea and air. The intense 360-degree short film immerses the viewer in the world of filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s epic action thriller, Dunkirk.

In the film, 400,000 Allied soldiers are trapped on the beach of Dunkirk, France. When the shore proved too shallow for massive naval vessels to get near enough, hundreds of civilian small boats answered the British government’s call to help pick up the increasingly desperate men. An estimated 338,000 British and French soldiers were saved by the combined effort of the small boats and the Royal Navy.

Through three tightly woven sequences, the film gives a focused view of what an infantryman, a Royal Air Force pilot and a small boat captain went through during the 1940 Operation Dynamo evacuation, which was dubbed the “miracle at Dunkirk.”

“In just a few taut moments, the Dunkirk VR Experience provides a thrilling glimpse of the three main settings in our film in a uniquely subjective way,” said Nolan, who wrote, directed and produced the film.

VR viewers experience the horrors of war, from waiting on the beach with thousands of trapped Allied soldiers to swimming underwater in the French Channel to flying in the skies in a RAF Spitfire.

“The world Christopher Nolan created for Dunkirk played right into the strengths of VR,” said Matthew Lewis, president of Practical Magic, and director and producer of Dunkirk VR Experience. “It’s relentless storytelling with the enemy always a breath away. We knew exactly how we wanted to bring that into VR — to put you right there in that moment.”

While 360-degree VR videos are optimized for HD and 4K media, the production company had to stitch images 40 times that resolution for this VR experience. Using Dell blade servers and workstations that were powered by Intel Xeon processors, Practical Magic had real-time access to high-resolution media during the post-production process.

“The Dunkirk VR Experience will likely transform all of our expectations about what immersive entertainment means in the years to come,” said Intel’s Velhal, who was also the executive co-producer for Dunkirk VRE.

Becoming a Superhero

A collaboration between Sony Pictures, CreateVR and Intel, the Spider-Man: HomecomingVR Experience is a 360-degree, immersive adventure that offers movie goers the opportunity to feel what it’s actually like to be Spidey by simply donning a VR headset.

For many, including Velhal, becoming Spider-Man fulfills a childhood fantasy.

The VR experience starts on the rooftop of Peter Parker’s apartment building, where players are given a virtual Spidey suit. Players then test their skills as a superhero by slinging webs, zip lining to the top of a crane and swinging off through the canyons of NYC in pursuit of the web-slinger’s nemesis, the villainous Vulture.

The experience feels so real that some people experience vertigo. To reduce such side effects, filmmakers employ a stylized pinhole view to reduce dizziness, said Velhal.

To create such cinematic realism – including players seeing a mirror version of themselves as Spider-Man – is complicated, to say the least.

“When we put the suit on, we see ourselves in a mirror. We have to actually have a reflection in real time that mimics the actions that we’re making,” said Sony Picture’s Jake Zim, a senior vice president of VR who oversaw the project. “That’s tough. Lighting, textures, all kinds of things that require really, really smart people and great technology.”

Zim said that was why Sony Pictures partnered with CreateVR and Intel.

The award-winning developers at CreateVR used Intel hardware and software tools, including dual Intel Xeon processor-based Dell workstations to create and render the 360-degree, ultra-high resolution graphics of New York.

“We want people to walk away from this really knowing what it feels like to be Spider-Man,” said Jake Black, head of the CreateVR team.

Le Musk Brings VR to Theaters

India’s A.R. Rahman, the two time Oscar and Grammy-winning composer turned filmmaker, was one of the first innovators in the VR cinema space. He’s behind the soon-to-be-released Le Musk, considered to be the world’s first VR multi-sensory feature film.

Shot in Rome, the VR movie follows the story of Juliet, an orphaned heiress and part-time musician.

In addition to sight and sound, Le Musk was produced for movie goers to experience seated inside a motion controlled egg-shaped pod by Positron.

The seat rotates 360 degrees and pitches forward, backward and from side-to-side to coincide with narrated movement in the storyline. It delivers smells via a spritzing device attached to the pod. The latter is especially appropriate given that the character of Juliet is obsessed with scents and perfumes.

The production team used a pair of Jaunt ONE cameras, each fitted with 24 camera sensors, that capture up to 8K (or 4K per eye) quality video. They also used a drone-mounted VR kit and other imaging gear.

Every frame was stitched into a 360-degree digital world. Computer generated (CG) effects were used to create almost every frame. It required powerful computer processing, fast memory, storage and retrieval, and rendering of the hundreds of terabytes of raw footage captured by the crew.

VR seats by Positron rotate 360 degrees, move in different directions and emit smells to coincide with the action in the film. Image courtesy of Positron.

Creating a VR experience that pushes boundaries and incorporates multiple senses was a guiding force for Rahman, who wrote, directed and composed music for the film.

“I think a good smell brings a positive vibration,” Rahman said in an Indian TV news interview, “and that’s one sensory aspect which has never taken over in storytelling.”

The film’s launch at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show this past April solidified a vision for the future of VR cinema. Watching viewers seated in a row of Positron VR chairs, one could easily envision a theater filled with rows and rows of the pods.

Intel’s Velhal, who collaborated with Rahman on the project as a VR technology producer, said that the VR multisensory experience was a huge hit, marked by long lines and rave reviews. He said people were willing to stand in line more than an hour to participate in the VR experience.

“It was a promising step toward the realization of a VR theater ecosystem down the line,” said Velhal.

Immersive Tech and Endless Possibilities

It’s only recently that tech has evolved to the point to make such immersive experiences possible.

“The sheer file size and quality of the media moving through the VR workflow pushes most available technologies to the limit,” said Velhal. “While the vast majority of existing pre- and post-production processes have been optimized for standard HD and 4K media, the 360-degree immersive VR format has to work with media that is exponentially larger in size, higher in resolution and performs complex operation on that media.”

With its tech expertise and data capabilities, Velhal said Intel is poised to play a significant role in the growing field of VR cinema.

As the technology continues to evolve, content creators will have the opportunity to create virtual realities on par with a Star Trek holodeck.

“The future of cinematic VR will be totally immersive,” said Velhal. “Multiple sensory experiences will keep on improving in quality, while the line between the real and virtual worlds will continue to blur.”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated since it was first published. Dunkirk images courtesy of Warner Bros. Spider-Man: Homecoming images courtesy of Sony Pictures. Image of VR chair courtesy of Positron.

]]><p>Leading filmmakers use 360-degree video, 3D-game-like environments, immersive sound, head mounted displays, motion chairs and even scent emitters to pull movie fans into the action. In one of the summer’s most anticipated movies, Dunkirk opens to hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops surrounded by enemy forces. Trapped on the beach with their backs &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/new-films-use-virtual-reality-immerse-movie-fans/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/new-films-use-virtual-reality-immerse-movie-fans/">New Films Use Virtual Reality to Immerse Movie Fans</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/new-films-use-virtual-reality-immerse-movie-fans/Top Model Turned Fashion Tech Pioneer Inspires New Makershttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/Va6WLDufkSs/UncategorizedAnina Netfashion techmothers of inventionrobotic dressVicky ThompsonTue, 27 Jun 2017 09:38:14 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19404Anina Net went from runway model to wearable tech maker, paving the way for the next generation of tech-savvy fashion designers.

After completing a fashion campaign for Gas Jeans, model Anina Net walked through the streets of Milan. Her face was everywhere: magazine covers, billboards, sides of buses. In that moment, she had a profound realization.

“I had this huge megaphone of media, but it had no meaning or message,” said Net. “I thought, ‘What could I do to have an impact on the world?’ I’m not sending people to the moon, I’m a fashion model.”

Net quickly evolved from a model to a fashion industry pioneer. Early on, she discovered how technology could benefit fashion shows and installations. She started a mobile-friendly behind-the-scenes blog and developed Intel Curie-powered shape-shifting robot dresses. Her LED motion-detecting gloves were featured on China national TV during a special Chinese New Year dance presentation.

She bundled her knowledge and technologies into kits to help designers and makers create their own fashion-tech prototypes — all without writing a line of code, embedding a servo motor or even soldering electrical wires.

Net is paving the way for others to create a career in fashion technology, something that was hardly an option until recent years. She is among a new wave of designers using 3D printers to bring sci-fi fashions to the runway and reimage the cocktail dress as a stunning, even deadly outfit.

Long before she hit the big time on the runway, Net was a tall, German-speaking misfit growing up with her two brothers in Northern Michigan. Her father was a private school math teacher who wanted his children to be engineers. While other kids spent their summers outdoors swimming and hiking at camp, Net and her brothers learned about computers.

“I was never excluded from technology,” she said. “When my brothers went to code camp, I had to go to code camp. When there was something wrong with the computer, my dad required us to fork out the hard drive together. I wasn’t ever set apart from technology because I was a girl.”

These differences — both physical and cultural — forced Net to develop a strong sense of self. This helped her pursue a true passion that she hid from her techie family: modeling.

“When I became a fashion model, my family disowned me for five years,” Net said. “No one talked to me. They tried to bend me to their will of becoming an engineer, and that just wasn’t going to happen.”

Returning to Her Techie Roots

But the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and computers were still in her blood. When Net later reconnected with her techie roots as the first-ever model blogger, her career took off. The blog gave others a behind-the-scenes look at the fashion industry, from showcasing her portfolio to revealing the happenings backstage at the catwalk.

However, Net was far ahead of her time. It caused pushback from the fashion industry. For all the innovation that emerges from the runway, most insiders weren’t thinking about how technology would change the future of fashion, she said.

Net demonstrates how the motion dress, created by RFactory using a tech kit, lights up when the wearer moves. Photo credit: Hanep Creative Studio.

“Nobody in the fashion industry wanted to use technology, none of them. They would ask me stupid things like, ‘Who would ever download a mobile app? Why would you ever want to put LEDs in your clothing? Who would ever dress a 3D version of themselves? You’re narcissistic.’”

Every time she tried to show them — whether it was augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) or something more complicated — nobody wanted to do it.

Despite the initial negativity, Net kept creating. She developed Anina Dress Up, a fashion dress up game with Adobe, and launched a DIY fashion app platform called MobileMags to support emerging designers. And, eventually, she found a responsive audience half a world away — in China.

“I was like, ‘That’s it, I’m out of here. I’m going where there are 1.3 billion people, they all have cell phones, they know what blogs are, and they have avatars of themselves and they download clothes to them,’” Net said. “‘China is an emerging economy. I’ll just go there and become China’s top foreign model, and then I’ll open my company, and I’ll just do technology from the top down.’”

Once Net arrived in China, the stars began to align. She founded the 360Fashion Network in 2005 in Paris, France as a real-time fashion news portal fueled by behind-the-scene footage captured by mobile phones. She opened 360Fashion Network company in Michigan in 2008 and a year later opened a subsidiary in China. She worked with the China National Garment Association and showcased different technologies can be used applied to fashion.

She also partnered with top technology brands to bring innovative ideas to life, including the Intel-Curie powered 162 motion-sensing LED gloves that synced to a live dance performance.

Not only was Net able to accomplish all her goals, she also figured out her message.

“If we have more women who are using technology, we will have more different types of services,” she explained. “We’ll have another perspective on it. It will look different, and maybe it will do different things.”

The idea was to make tech cool and fashionable. If she could inspire girls and women as “the techie model,” she could bring diversity to industries like engineering, manufacturing and coding. Her new 360Fash Tech Kits offer easy starting point.

These 12 kits supply designers with everything they need to integrate technology and take their creations to the next level without coding or soldering. Drag-and-drop software means anyone can figure out the logistics of their vision, whatever that looks like.

One innovator used the Proximity Kit to design a wedding dress that illuminates when the bride stands next to her intended. ROMASTER created the Qi Suit — a tailored suit that translates Tai Chi movements into light patterns — using the Gesture kit. A kit based off the responsive LED glove is in the works.

Net said the kits take away the intimidation factor, leaving the creators to be as imaginative as they desire.

Inspiring and Educating Designers

“If we don’t make tech beautiful and accessible for people, we won’t get tech that has the turnaround effect,” she continued. “When we forget the keys and we’re in a hurry, we go back to get them. If we’re late and forget our fitness trackers, we probably won’t.”

Turnaround technologies may be a bit far off, but Net’s media megaphone is making headway toward her goal of inspiring women.

“Fashion is wonderful way to attract more women to science and tech through skills they might already have like crafting and sewing,” she said. “The most rewarding thing is when young girls say, ‘I want to make a robotic dress’ or ‘I want to use the LED ribbon in my prom dress.’”

Net wants the next generation of innovators to disregard the naysayers.

“Look forward, rather than focus on what others are doing,” she said. “Don’t lose your dream. There’s something magical out there for everyone, and when you buckle down, the universe and heavens collide to help you.”

]]><p>Anina Net went from runway model to wearable tech maker, paving the way for the next generation of tech-savvy fashion designers. After completing a fashion campaign for Gas Jeans, model Anina Net walked through the streets of Milan. Her face was everywhere: magazine covers, billboards, sides of buses. In that moment, she had a profound realization. &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/top-model-turned-fashion-tech-pioneer-inspires-new-makers/">Continued</a></p>
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https://iq.intel.com/top-model-turned-fashion-tech-pioneer-inspires-new-makers/Lama Nachman Keeps Stephen Hawking Talking with Assistive Techhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/M3voGfMU1BY/Uncategorizedassistive techLama Nachmanmothers of inventionpredictive computingStephen Hawkingwomen in techVicky ThompsonWed, 21 Jun 2017 10:49:12 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19360Believing anything is possible led Lama Nachman to become a groundbreaking engineer in predictive computing – and yes, she is on physicist Stephen Hawking’s speed dial.

World-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking had fans laughing when he auditioned people to find a replacement for his trademark computer-generated voice. The spoof for Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day last March revealed for many just how iconic Hawking’s voice is and how its sound is imbedded in the way we think about the universe.

“Stephen’s voice is IP protected,” said Lama Nachman, a principal engineer at Intel leading the team that helps improve Hawking’s computer interface. “He really likes the way that it sounds.”

Chronicled in the film The Theory of Everything, Hawking was struck by a rare early-onset, slow-progressing form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) that deteriorated his speech and motor skills. His computer system is a critical communication tool — allowing him to speak through his speech synthesizer, type up his breakthrough ideas and even search the web.

After meeting Intel cofounder Gordon Moore in 1997, Hawking has relied on Intel engineers to fine tune his customized PCs. When Hawking needed a new system in 2011, Nachman eagerly stepped up to the task.

“There are projects that we do because we love the research and we’re inspired by the research,” said Nachman, an Intel Fellow and director of Intel’s Anticipatory Computing Lab. “Then there are projects that we do because they feed our souls, and that’s one of those types of projects.”

Beyond her work with Hawking, she feeds her soul by working on a range of projects exploring how computing devices can sense their surroundings, learn and adapt to better serve people’s personal needs. She speaks fast without wasting or mincing words, and her certainty is distracted only occasionally by brilliant bursts of humility.

Data-Powered Future

Nachman is a tenacious, fast-thinking computer engineer with advanced degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She developed a deep understanding of hardware, software, networking and algorithms, and has spent her career pushing the boundaries of what computing can do to enhance human experiences. Her team is currently working on creating context-aware systems that can understand people through sensing and apply this knowledge to assist them in daily life.

“Imagine a computer that can understand a student’s emotions and level of engagement, and tailor content to better engage the student,” she said. “Or imagine a smart manufacturing facility that can watch over technicians’ activities and help them perform their tasks correctly, or a smart home that watches over kids and elderly and engages them accordingly.”

Instrumental in the development of the first internet-connected digital picture frame, early smart TVs and the rapid progression of wireless sensor networks, Nachman has spent the past decade shaping the future of predictive computing, where devices powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can learn and act on their own to assist their owners, businesses or societies.

“We are moving into a world of data-driven, data-rich computing,” said Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist and technologist as well as a professor at Australian National University. Nachman joined Intel in 2003, and seven years later Bell, a lead ethnographer at Intel Labs, asked Nachman to join her team to conduct user experience research.

Bell sees Nachman’s work driving a departure from the era of connected, visible “and even fetishized devices” to a world where computing is ubiquitous, operating in the background, helping people live better lives.

“This is about computing that knows the world around, interprets what it is encountering and makes decisions about how to navigate or negotiate that world,” Bell said. “Nachman’s work has been at the cutting edge of this shift for some time.”

Giving Voice to a Physics Legend

Nachman said she was both excited and terrified to meet Hawking for the first time. Given the opportunity to work with someone of his stature and the spotlight that entailed, she said failure was not an option.

Initially, Nachman considered a complete redesign of Hawking’s system using new technologies such as eye tracking or electroencephalography (EEG) controls. However, Hawking, who has used the same interface for years, preferred familiarity over something revolutionary.

“We realized that he was risk averse and that we should be looking for solutions that were more incremental,” said Nachman, who spent significant time with Hawking to better understand how he used his old system, as well as to get a sense of his actual needs.

“Often, as technologists, we tend to throw technology at a problem, rather than really try to understand where technology fits with that problem,” she said. “We need to understand how humans operate in these spaces and what it is that they really need help with.”

Over the course of the next few years, through trial and error – with Hawking test driving the tech at each step – Nachman and her team created nearly 60 iterations of the new system. They recoded the software from the ground up, adding enhanced features, such as a word prediction from SwiftKey, to enable Hawking to communicate and conduct work more efficiently.

Though Nachman continues to tweak the system periodically to provide Hawking with more capabilities as his condition changes, the new design has already doubled his rate of speech and improved his ability to perform computing tasks tenfold.

Assistive Technology for All

Recognizing the potential benefit to thousands of people suffering from motor neurone disease and quadriplegia, Nachman made the call to share the platform with the international research community via open source.

“One of the nice things about the way we’ve designed it, is that we decoupled sensors from the rest of the system,” said Nachman. “If a person can move anything, any muscle, we can find a way to translate that movement into the equivalent of a push button to control the system.”

While Hawking moves his cheek to trigger an infrared sensor mounted on his glasses, and thus controls the cursor on his computer screen, others can use the trigger that makes the most sense for their condition, be it camera, EEG or other input.

“One person lost the ability to move every muscle except one finger,” said Nachman, “so we created a ring that had accelerometers in it.”

Hundreds of people have already benefited from the open source material, as evidenced by the multitude of emails Nachman receives every day with questions about customizing the technology for the disabled or notes of thanks from loved ones grateful to be able to communicate with a family member once again.

Teaching Tech to Understand Emotions

The desire to solve problems and help others drives an array of tech projects in Nachman’s lab, addressing such issues as health and wellness, automation and improved efficiencies. But Nachman believes one endeavor in particular will have the most impact on assistive computing as a whole: teaching tech to understand human emotion.

Imagine a robot or phone assistant that not only responds to commands, but also anticipates needs and desires, and interacts as another human might. We’re already moving in that direction, she said, as technology can sense contextual data and present an alert to assist its owner. As AI evolves, it will allow devices to better analyze data and learn, allowing it to get smarter and improve how it interacts.

Think C-3PO from Star Wars or Samantha from Her.

To prepare for his role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, actor Eddie Redmanye worked with Nachman to understand how assistive tech helps Hawking.

With Nachman pushing the boundaries of what active computing can do, this future is not so distant.

“We can detect people’s emotions in very specific instances in controlled environments,” said Nachman. “What we’re trying to do now is to detect people’s emotions in the wild, in uncontrolled settings.”

For AI technology to truly gauge emotional context in situations, Nachman said it requires accurately assessing not only concrete inputs such as location and activity, but also variables such as personal physiology, voice, facial expression and words they uttered.

“Emotion is affected by so many things and is manifested in people in different ways,” Nachman explained.

In the end, the goal is to use technology to make positive differences in the human experience.

“Ultimately, humans are good at certain things and machines are good at other things,” she said. “The way we complement each other will be the best way to get the most out of the combination of human and machine.”

Trailblazer for Women in Tech

Nachman’s was not a typical career path. A Palestinian girl raised in Kuwait, Nachman got an early start beating the odds.

“It’s not necessarily a culture that’s very supportive of women, especially not women in STEM fields,” she said.

But her father shielded her from discrimination.

“At a very early age, my dad really made me believe that I could accomplish anything that I wanted to accomplish if I just worked hard at it and put my energy into it,” she said.

When she graduated from high school, ranked 12th in the country, her father encouraged her to follow her dreams, which – for Nachman – meant heading to the U.S. for college.

“In so many ways, being that naive about what is possible made me think that everything was possible,” she said.

Nachman learns about an engineering student’s tech creation at an engineering fair at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

It wasn’t until later that she began to consider why there were so few women in tech, even in the U.S.

“A lot of people jump to the conclusion that girls don’t like science and math, but that is totally untrue,” Nachman said. “I think a big part of the problem is that women don’t see themselves in these types of careers.”

When she talks to young women about the work that she does, Nachman said they are often surprised that such work exists and that women are already part of it.

“We need to do a better job of getting across the message that not all engineers look and act the same way,” she said.

She has strong advice for young women.

“Look for what inspires you,” she said. “Look for things that you would love and that will help you change in the world. A lot of times, passions can lead to changing people’s lives for the better.”

]]><p>Believing anything is possible led Lama Nachman to become a groundbreaking engineer in predictive computing – and yes, she is on physicist Stephen Hawking’s speed dial. World-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking had fans laughing when he auditioned people to find a replacement for his trademark computer-generated voice. The spoof for Comic Relief&#8217;s Red Nose Day last &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/lama-nachman-keeps-stephen-hawking-talking-assistive-tech/">Continued</a></p>
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https://iq.intel.com/lama-nachman-keeps-stephen-hawking-talking-assistive-tech/5G Networks Are Not Just About Smartphoneshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/q46uH8fhWC0/Uncategorized2020 Tokyo Olympics5G5G not just smartphonesVicky ThompsonFri, 16 Jun 2017 11:10:25 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19314Next generation wireless networks are built to connect cars, homes and machines using higher bandwidth and lower latency to power more than just smartphones.

These and other technologies that rely on intelligence from the internet are exactly what technology leaders have in mind as they build 5G, the next generation wireless network set to become available by 2020.

This 5G technology is not just for smartphones, according to Robert Topol, general manager of Intel’s 5G Business and Technology.

He said 5G is designed to be smarter and better performing than current 4G technology, so it can bring communications, computing and artificial intelligence closer to our daily lives.

“5G is not just the next G,” said Topol. “It’s about handling more data, whether it’s from a refrigerator, washing machine, vehicle or flying drone.”

This could blur lines between the spaces we use for work, home and play, he said.

It has the potential to bring a new era of interconnectedness, where cars, industrial automation and new augmented and virtual reality experiences will rely on a robust wireless network.

Faster Connection

According to research firm IHS Markit, the number of things connected to the internet will reach 20 billion this year, 30.7 billion in 2020 and more than 75 billion by 2025.

“There will be billions of devices and billions of connected things coming onboard in the next five or six years,” he said. Over time, 5G will make things smarter by connecting them to more computer-powered intelligence.

Topol said 5G is not only about broader broadband, it’s about low latency, reliable communications and handling machine-to-machine communication.

No-Lag Entertainment

New 5G networks will help wirelessly connected devices to stream high quality content, according to Carrie MacGillivray, vice president of IDC’s Mobility and IoT.

“You’ll be able to download even a 4K video in a second or two, as opposed to waiting minutes to download a full movie,” she said.

It could open new entertainment experiences and coverage of live events. The technology is being tested now, but the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is slated to be the first true showcase for 5G technology, said Darrell West, director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution.

“The Japanese see that as a great opportunity to incorporate new approaches to covering sports events,” said West.

For example, spectators could use their mobile devices to watch an event from different vantages — switching among a player’s camera-mounted helmet, a bird’s eye view from above and a traditional side-on view. When a spectator points a phone at a player, augmented reality (AR) could be used to display a short bio of the player, superimposed on the screen.

“5G will allow a full stereoscopic view, a mix of virtual and augmented reality, and an ability to share that experience with others — whether they are in the next room or halfway around the world,” said Topol.

Smart Health and Safety

New 5G connections could help digital devices deliver high quality medical care in real time at an affordable cost.

Innovative wearable and remote care technologies that connect to wireless networks can benefit from 5G networks. One example might be a soft robotic finger — piloted by the U.K.’s National Health Service at the Centre for Robotic Research at King’s College in London — that physicians can use to remotely examine a patient’s abdomen. MacGillivray said the device allows doctors to palpate tumors and diagnose based on haptic feedback.

5G networks could help make cutting edge healthcare technology mobile and more accessible.

With the development of autonomous vehicles, safety is an important factor and early applications will leverage new technologies built into 5G. The new networks will help make smart car technology more accessible.

Although some cars are currently semi-autonomous — many high-end models come with automatic braking, a crash-prevention technology that automatically applies the brakes when the car approaches an obstacle at an unsafe speed — such capabilities will expand quickly over the next several years. Automatic braking has already started showing up in less expensive models.

“The network will become faster, the latency less and the machines able to talk to each other more,” said Topol.

]]><p>Next generation wireless networks are built to connect cars, homes and machines using higher bandwidth and lower latency to power more than just smartphones. It&#8217;s no longer science fiction to see smart homes automatically control lights or alert owners whenever the refrigerator needs restocking. Already in many cities, smart cars drive autonomously, powered by sophisticated, &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/5g-networks-not-just-smartphones/">Continued</a></p>
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https://iq.intel.com/5g-networks-not-just-smartphones/Quirky, Collaborative Culture Makes Portland a Hotbed for VRhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/wHonFLSvR60/UncategorizedOregon Story BoardPortlandReflective BrandsRose City Gamesvirtual realityVRVR Q2 seriesWILDVicky ThompsonWed, 21 Jun 2017 13:52:08 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19277A diverse community of digital pioneers are building the foundation for Portland, Oregon to shape the future of virtual reality.

It’s still science fiction to most of the world, but in the Pacific Northwest city of Portland, Oregon, virtual reality (VR) has triggered a real life gold rush.

“VR is sparking the imagination, and people are coming by train, horseback and any means necessary to get here to see if they can claim their piece of VR,” said Tawny Schlieski, founder of Oregon Story Board, an educational resource for both beginners and professionals alike in VR.

After 17 years as a research engineer at Intel, Schlieski knew this was the year to break off and start Shovels + Whiskey, a Portland-based VR prototyping studio aimed at helping industries, academia and individuals from different backgrounds discover new uses for the emerging medium.

“We want to give all those VR prospectors the tools they need to strike it rich and make their dreams come true,” she said.

Called the Silicon Forest for its cluster of semiconductor and high technology companies operating in the metropolitan area, Portland is a laid-back city with an eccentric hipster culture satirized in the TV series Portlandia. Often covered by overcast skies – records show there’s an average of 68 clear sky days a year – Portland has become a hotbed for VR exploration.

Maybe the rain and long gray months force introspection and fuel creativity required to make VR grow, said Joshua Young, founder of creative studio Reflective Brands.

“Portland has a tremendous amount of potential to be a hub for VR,” he said. “The weather, quality of life and cost of living here make a huge difference in our ability to take risks and be creative.”

Young runs the Portland VR Meetup, which brings together people interested in learning about the latest VR projects from local representatives at both small and large national and international companies.

“It really fosters a sense of community and collaboration that I believe is necessary to really be successful as an industry,” said Young.

Quirky VR Hub

Young said people are attracted to Portland’s quirky quality of life, the food carts and the city’s famed Unipiper — a kilt-wearing, unicycle-riding, bag-pipe playing Darth Vader impersonator who rides through downtown.

“Where else do you get that?” asks Young.

Situated along Willamette River, not far from where the historic Oregon Trail ends, Portland shook its 19th century reputation as a dangerous port city corrupted by organized crime and racketeering to become a world class city, ranked in recent years as “most internet connected city,” “best beer town” and “best bike city.”

Nearly 700,000 people live in the city, but 2.4 million residents reside in the greater Portland metropolitan area. Many use nifty terms of endearment like PDX, Stumptown, Rip City and P-Town when talking about their city.

Many people flock to Portland because it’s located between Seattle and San Francisco, two west coast cities with a rich history of digital innovation.

“I’ve lived in a bunch of different places in my life and I’ve never been somewhere where community felt as important as it does here in Portland,” said Corey Warning, cofounder of Rose City Games.

“It’s one of the larger cities that I’ve lived in, but it never really feels like that.”

Locals listen to VR creators at Portland VR Meetup.

Before moving to Portland, everyone warned Warning about the rain.

“It’s a good excuse for me to work really hard all the time,” he said.

Warning organizes the Portland Indie Game Squad, lovingly called PIGSquad, which hosts drink and draw networking events to build comradery among people working on 3D and VR modeling.

“It’s a really cool way to get artists who have never worked with game makers — or don’t know how to get a start working in games — all together in one space so they can meet and collaborate with others,” he said.

Collaborative DNA

Collaboration is in Portland’s DNA. As VR evolves, no one single idea will reign supreme, according to Gabe Paez, founder of VR production agency WILD, which hosts co-working space supporting people working in the new medium.

“Collaboration is going to allow everyone ultimately to succeed,” Paez said. “That’s the way I work, and I wanted to create that locally here in Portland.”

Creating for virtual reality requires a shift away from established approaches to designing for desktop and mobile devices, said Paez. Virtual reality is truly experiential, and to create it requires inspiration from books and the real world.

He said Portlanders can easily escape to the mountain and absorb what it feels like moving through the woods then figure out how to replicate that in a digital world.

“The best ideas come from nature,” said Paez. “We’ve got beautiful mountains and water around us and we use those to find inspiration. We also have amazing engineering talent because of the community that Intel and other tech companies have built. It has given us access to hardware and the ability to share ideas.”

The Portland skyline is usually covered by clouds, encouraging developers to stay indoors and be creative.

Portland is a perfect storm for VR, said Oregon Story Board’s Schlieski.

“We have a creative community that’s collaborative and passionate about technology, support from government and state agencies who are helping those businesses get started, and we have a local economy in which you can still find affordable housing. These elements together really produce an environment that’s really ripe for the next evolution,” she said.

Schlieski believes that VR is one of those seminal technologies that will change the way people communicate, learn and share new ideas.

“I am just over the moon excited to be involved early on and to have a chance to help a bunch of new creators who are imagining new things get started in that,” she said.

The undercurrent of VR in Portland has been swirling for several years. When Schlieski teamed up with pal Vince Porter and Oregon startup chronicler Rick Turoczy to launch Oregon Story Board in 2013, they wanted to ensure Oregon played a significant role in the evolution of the augmented and virtual reality marketplace.

“We saw a new economy emerging that would require new jobs and a lot of new skills,” she said. “It was clear to us that we had an opportunity to develop a diverse workforce. We have been working pretty intently to attract talent and support new businesses.”

A VR player tests a new game at the VR Meetup in Portland.

If the talent pool in Portland isn’t vast and varied, Schlieski said the local economy growing around VR technology will be short lived.

“We’re not going to be successful because we have one company that works,” she said.

Growing Talent Pool

As the talent pool grows, Schlieski said more companies are turning to Portland-based VR expertise to create compelling new digital experiences.

“Portland has a cultural advantage,” she said. “It’s very committed to open access, open source and sharing intellectual resources.”

She points to how the local wine industry emerged, led by passionate winemakers who shared resources in order to make the region successful. They shared equipment and helped one another through harvests, and that’s how the fledgling VR community is banding together to build a foundation for lasting growth.

“This is going to take two, three, four, five years for VR to really mature and blossom into a stable and healthy industry, but the potential we see in VR is only limited by our imagination, our creativity and what we are willing to explore.”

Editor’s note: The profile of Portland as a hotbed for VR ispart of iQ’s special video series on VR creators.

]]><p>A diverse community of digital pioneers are building the foundation for Portland, Oregon to shape the future of virtual reality. It’s still science fiction to most of the world, but in the Pacific Northwest city of Portland, Oregon, virtual reality (VR) has triggered a real life gold rush. “VR is sparking the imagination, and people &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/quirky-collaborative-culture-makes-portland-hotbed-vr/">Continued</a></p>
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https://iq.intel.com/quirky-collaborative-culture-makes-portland-hotbed-vr/Building Technology for the VR Erahttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/Mq2Hv-OTBKc/UncategorizedE3E3 2017E32017OptanePCsVRWiGigKen Kaplan, Intel iQ Managing EditorWed, 21 Jun 2017 13:53:50 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19238Innovations in modern PC design are taking VR to new heights.

Over six million dedicated VR systems were sold last year, but this week at E3, the giant gaming and entertainment conference in Los Angeles, many people experienced for the first time technology breakthroughs that are leading VR further into the mainstream.

Systems that power VR have different needs than traditional desktop PCs and even gaming rigs, and the industry is racing to build gear to deliver smooth, life-like VR experiences.

The earliest personal computers, like the Altair 8800, were designed as open systems, so people could build their own computers, swapping out chips and components that cater to their specific needs.

This design ethos of openness allowed the PC to excel at developing creative, experimental technologies without restrictions or restraints. The art of 3D graphics, for instance, was pioneered for decades on the PC before Pixar’s Toy Story wowed moviegoers with colorful computer generated graphics in the ‘90s.

The idea that PC customization leads to innovation still holds true today. Even though market analysts forecast that cheaper mobile VR will outpace dedicated VR on PC, accounting for 75 percent of the install base by 2021, innovation will happen on the PC first.

“The PC has played an integral part in making VR what it is, and the PC will continue to be a very important part in pushing VR to its limits,” said George Jijiashvili, a VR analyst at CCS Insight.

New and Rejiggered Tech

Recently released computer technologies, ranging from bigger and faster memory to top of the line computer processors like the Intel Core i9 Extreme Edition, deliver horsepower needed to bring computationally demanding VR experiences to life.

At E3, Intel used a new Intel Core i9 Extreme Edition processor to power Multiverse’s Seeking Dawn, a large scale VR first person shooter (FPS) and role playing game (RPG).

In some cases, existing technologies are rejiggered to meet the requirements of VR. HTC demonstrated wireless headsets, for example, that use Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig), a wireless communications technology that Intel developed years ago, but with VR in mind.

“We had been working on the tech, and we saw that it could be very applicable to the high-bandwidth, low-latency needs of doing VR wirelessly,” said Kim Pallister, director of Intel’s Virtual Reality Center of Excellence.

For VR to work smoothly, a huge amount of data needs to move from the computer to the headset very quickly, thus the cables. When trying to stream VR wirelessly over standard Wi-Fi, the signal wasn’t strong enough. The headset would flicker and go blank, making the user nauseous.

WiGig’s high speeds worked wonders though, eliminating the need for wires.

Similarly, new Intel Optane Memory was developed with other goals: to help PCs load data quickly from the hard drive. But Pallister said the benefits were immediately obvious for VR.

“Nobody likes long load times,” said Pallister, yet waiting for the computer to load the next screen is uncomfortable in VR. “When you switch applications, the screen can go blank, and you are sitting there floating in blackness.” The faster memory alleviated the problem.

And the highest performing technologies are often used to demonstrate new VR capabilities. At E3, Intel used a new Intel Core i9 Extreme Edition processor to power Multiverse’s Seeking Dawn, a large scale VR FPS and RPG.

Shape Shifting

Another recent trend in PC design is the diversification of the physical shape of machines. No longer just identical-looking gray boxes, PCs are available in creative designs that better fit the way people use them. A good example is the Microsoft Surface Studio, which flips down into a tablet-style sketchbook.

This new era of customized computing has vast implications for VR. Already VR-ready backpack PCs, like HP’s Omen X VR backpack, allow people to take virtual experience outside of VR rooms. Eventually, this type of powerful, portable computing could allow VR applications to sense a person’s environment and incorporates their surroundings, creating mixed or merged reality experiences.

VR requires huge processing and graphics power, so equipment can get hot. Special care must be given to dissipating heat. For instance, the G11CD, a VR-ready desktop from Asus, employs eight air vents to give the processor much needed relief.

Pallister believes the biggest changes in PC design are yet to come. For PCs to run VR out of the box without the hassle of setting up equipment, the internal wiring, the placement of Wi-Fi transmitters and cameras, and the capabilities of the components will need to change.

As VR gains popularity, the PC will continue to evolve, allowing for even greater experiences.

Editor’s note: For highlights from E3 2017, visit the the Intel Newsroom. Follow stories about the evolution of virtual reality in iQ’s VR series.

]]><p>Innovations in modern PC design are taking VR to new heights. Over six million dedicated VR systems were sold last year, but this week at E3, the giant gaming and entertainment conference in Los Angeles, many people experienced for the first time technology breakthroughs that are leading VR further into the mainstream. Systems that power VR have different needs &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/building-technology-for-the-vr-era/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/building-technology-for-the-vr-era/">Building Technology for the VR Era</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/building-technology-for-the-vr-era/Making Virtual Reality: How Creators Embrace a New Mediumhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/1YQ0F_lNHsc/UncategorizedOregon Story BoardPixelPoolRose City GamesVR creatorsVR Q2 seriesVR video seriesWILDVicky ThompsonWed, 21 Jun 2017 13:48:53 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19138VR creators describe why now is the time to learn the craft, and why they want to help create a VR breakthrough moment.

In the 1960s, talk of virtual reality (VR) sounded more like dystopian science fiction than a promising new medium that immerses people in exciting experiences. A new generation of creators is moving VR out of the darkness into the mainstream using passion, talent and technology that’s faster and more accessible than ever.

“We’ve been talking about this idea of the digital world colliding with our physical world for a long time,” said Gabe Paez, founder of WILD, a VR production agency in Portland, Oregon.

“When we talk about the potential of VR, all of those sci-fi ideas that have been around for many years now seem possible.”

He said this is just the beginning because VR technology – from 360-degree cameras and high performance computing to headsets and controllers – is getting into the hands of more creators and consumers. Beyond entertainment, he said VR can be transformative for industries.

“When I put on that headset I’m transported into a digital world,” said Paez. “I look around, walk forward, move backwards, bend down and jump in ways that were once impossible with a desktop or laptop computer.”

“We’ve been waiting for enough computational power, both to build and experience these worlds, and we were pretty stuck with neither one until quite recently,” said Schlieski, a former research engineer at Intel, where her digital storytelling skills helped bring to life Leviathan, Royal Shakespeare Company’s Tempest and experiences at the Sundance Film Festival among others.

VR creator Tawny Schlieski paints in the air at Oregon Story Board.

“Raw computational power of computer and graphics processing, memory and storage have improved in recent years, so now we can build and drive complex digital environments,” she said. “In order to make VR, you need all of those things to be big and fast. The constraints that we had before are starting to dissolve because of rapid technology innovation.”

Industry analysts expect the total augmented and VR market to reach between $80 and $150 billion by 2020. As technology gets better and more affordable, more creators are using it in new ways that could profoundly impact human learning and interaction.

“It might cost around $7,000 for a really fast server chip, which is something that ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) or Disney can afford, but most creators can’t,” said Schlieski. “Now consumer-grade chips that cost hundreds of dollars can deliver enough performance to create VR experiences.”

Most VR experiences are massive digital environments built with high quality pixels that need to move and react smoothly whenever the viewer turns their head or interacts with the scene, according to Portland-based Ravi Velhal, Intel’s Global Content Strategist.

“The vast majority of existing pre- and post-production processes have been optimized for standard HD and 4K media, but 360 immersive VR format has to work with media that is exponentially larger in size, higher in resolution, and performs complex operation on that media,” said Velhal.

Sharing VR Worlds

Paez’s team at WILD built a cloud-based design platform that makes it easier for industries like architectural design to create digital experience that combine virtual reality with elements of real life.

“The first time I put that headset on, I knew that it was something special that can really be meaningful and change our lives,” said Paez.

He immediately realized VR could translate ideas into experiences that allow people to learn and share together even if they’re physically in different locations. Architects can create a VR experience where people can see how a design idea looks, and then virtually walk through the design with others. It requires him to have a tool that builds a design quickly in high fidelity so others can easily experience it and manipulate it.

“We’re taking that leap through the screen and into this ability to really communicate ideas at a level that we couldn’t before,” said Paez. “Our ability to create and render that content in real time is mind-boggling.”

Gabe Paez believes that VR and the physical world are now colliding.

Although VR’s breakthrough moment hasn’t hit yet, Paez believes VR will someday allow people to interact better than they can today using a phone call or video chat.

But creating VR is hard. The environments must be photo-realistic and interactive. Schlieski said that requires high resolution at high framerates.

“As you make more objects respond naturally, you get the computational challenges,” Schlieski. “When you pipe your creation to a headset, your audience is going to be very physically uncomfortable if you have too slow of a framerate. You’re going to get people throwing up in your experience, which is suboptimal.”

VR Wild West

The world of creating VR still feels like the wild west, but new tools are making it easier than ever, according to Corey Warning, cofounder of Rose City Games, which organizes the Portland Indie Game Squad, known by locals as PIGSquad. The nonprofit organization supports game development in the Pacific Northwest and hosts networking events, game jams and mixers for VR creators.

“If somebody’s working on a game in a 3D space, there’s all these tools that you can just check a box and now you’re ready to translate that into VR,” said Warning. “That stuff is super helpful, especially for somebody who has never got their hands on virtual reality before.”

Corey Warning supports VR creators through Rose City Games.

He advised VR creators to thoroughly think through the kind of visual and audio experience they want to make.

“You can have a door slam or an upstairs floorboard creak, and when someone has the headphones in and the headset on, that immersion is pretty terrifying,” he said.

VR creators need to know if the player is seated or in a big room and what kind of movements they might make. These aspects need to be built into the interactive environment, along with a keen understanding of people’s intolerance for motion sickness.

“As the technology continues to grow and become more affordable, we’re going to see increased resolution and that’s going to improve immersion,” said Warning.

Mental Shotgun Approach

VR developers must manage and account for incredible detail in order to create this amazing visual worlds, said Luis Garcia, an interactive developer at PixelPool, a Portland agency building virtual showrooms for the retail merchandising industry.

In order to have the desired psychological effect, VR creators have to know how to trick the senses. He calls it the mental shotgun approach.

“You take the eyesight, hearing, movement and make the person think they’re actually inside the store,” said Garcia.

He said VR developers must consider information about where the user is looking, their body position, velocity of movement and reaction to their touch or hand controllers, and then use physics to react to those movements in a smooth, life-like manner.

He believes VR could be the next technology to transform society, just as databases, personal computers and mobile phones changed daily life.

“Mixed reality and VR will go as far as artists will takes it,” said Garcia. “Once we move away from having these awkward headsets on your head, people are going to be able to incorporate VR technology into their culture and social settings.”

Schlieski hopes a wide range of people with different interests and backgrounds learn how VR works, using it to express themselves and change their view of the world, just how filmmaker Martin Scorsese used his evolving craft to create groundbreaking cinematic stories.

“When more people begin to see in VR, I think you’ll begin to get some really amazing art,” she said.

Editor’s note: Making Virtual Reality is part of iQ’s special video series on VR creators.

]]><p>VR creators describe why now is the time to learn the craft, and why they want to help create a VR breakthrough moment. In the 1960s, talk of virtual reality (VR) sounded more like dystopian science fiction than a promising new medium that immerses people in exciting experiences. A new generation of creators is moving &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/making-virtual-reality-creators-embrace-new-medium/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/making-virtual-reality-creators-embrace-new-medium/">Making Virtual Reality: How Creators Embrace a New Medium</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/making-virtual-reality-creators-embrace-new-medium/Designing a Digital Traffic System for Commercial Droneshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/WF0IfTqPKfQ/Uncategorized5GAnil Nanduricommercial dronedrone traffic managementIntel Aero Ready to Fly DroneIntel Falcon 8NASAParimal KopardekarProject WingVirtinia Tech Mid-Atlantic Aviation PartnershipVicky ThompsonMon, 19 Jun 2017 22:38:08 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19051NASA scientists and technology industry leaders are creating an automated drone traffic system aimed at balancing flight efficiency and safety.

By 2020, lower altitude skies could become wickedly dangerous. That’s when an estimated 2.6 million commercial drones will be in the wild, not to mention several million more flying robots owned and operated by consumers.

“When I say every home will have a drone, many people don’t believe it, but I do,” said Parimal Kopardekar, principal investigator at NASA for unmanned aerial systems traffic management.

PK, as Kopardekar is known to friends and colleagues, is dead serious. Serious enough to create an unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) traffic management (UTM) system to help avoid catastrophic collisions caused by rampant drone traffic, especially if regulations allow drones to fly beyond the line of sight (watch his Talks at Google on how to make skies safer).

“I call what we have today ‘eyeball traffic management,’” he said. “Once regulations allow drones to fly beyond visual line of sight, drones need to be electronically tracked.”

The potential for commercial drones is growing as companies find ways to use them for deliveries, inspection of infrastructure, science, and search and rescue missions. Kopardekar wants to get ahead of the curve by creating an air traffic system that will help the fledgling drone economy flourish.

“Drone technology is maturing rapidly,” said Kopardekar. “We can’t wait until 2.6 million commercial drones are flying then build air traffic management.”

He remembers it wasn’t until after two aircraft collided over the Grand Canyon that the government and industry introduced an air traffic management system in 1958.

“We need to have this in place ahead of time so that we can balance efficiency and safety, and allow the economic value to be realized for drone operations in low altitude air space,” he said.

Kopardekar and his NASA teammates began building a drone traffic system in 2015. Powered by cloud computing, artificial intelligence and software automation, it uses application programming interfaces (APIs) so that other services can plug into the traffic system.

“We need a cost-effective, reliable system that ensures safety without burdening operators like today’s main aviation system does, where everybody has to keep talking to the air traffic controller,” said Kopardekar.

For example, Delta Airlines sends the flight plans to a control tower, where a human mediator identifies and separates any conflicts, and then dictates a final flight path.

“We want to reduce that bottleneck by giving operators access to flight constraints, locations of other aviators operating nearby and let operators decide where and when they fly,” he said.

A flexible and scalable traffic system will allow millions of drone operators to use it simultaneously in a safe and reliable manner.

Building on the Past

Kopardekar finds parallels with life in the 1930s, when multiple modes of transportation illuminated the need for balancing efficiency and public safety.

“At intersections there were horse and buggies, trams, cars, and people walking, and it created chaos,” he said. “That is when the lanes, stop signs and all those things emerged to maintain efficiency while insuring safety of every mode of transportation.”

Kopardekar has led air traffic management related research since 1993. According to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, no single scientist has a more central role shaping the integrated airspace of the future.

If his UMT research comes to fruition, commercial drone operators will simply connect to a networked communication system that determines when and how a drone will fly safely and efficiently to its destination. It would be fully automated, similar to how the U.S. Department of Transportation is approaching self-driving cars.

“If you want to operate in the airspace, you grade your trajectory or any other flight operation and send it into the system to check that someone else is not using it,” he said.

Traffic and Other Services

Working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and a variety of industry leaders, Kopardekar’s NASA team will continue their research and development through 2019, then the FAA will work with drone technology innovators to complete and implement a traffic system by 2025.

The data exchange system will share only necessary information wirelessly between operators and the FAA. Technologies and services that provide planning, scheduling, tracking and sensing could come from a wide variety of industry leaders.

“Suppliers could emerge to help commercial drone operators plan flights and secure access to the air space in a safe manner,” said Kopardekar. “Tracking can be provided by a variety of technology or service providers like Verizon or Intel. Multiple operators and suppliers can interact with each other on one system.”

NASA’s work is inspiring collaboration across industries and universities.

“Within a few years, Wing and other companies are likely to have fleets with thousands of UAS in the air at any one time, so we’ll need systems that can dynamically route UAS not only around each other, but around manned aircraft, buildings, terrain, weather patterns and special events,” explained James Ryan Burgess, co-lead of Project Wing, in a blog post.

Ryan’s team tested their UTM platform at an FAA site run by the Virginia Tech Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership (MAAP). Three Wing aircraft, piloted by a single Wing operator, performed package pickup and delivery missions in the same area where Intel was piloting two Intel Aero Ready to Fly Drones and MAPP flew a DJI Inspire on an automated search and rescue mission.

“Operators have historically had to steer their aircraft away from obstacles manually; instead, we demonstrated that our UTM platform can automatically manage the flight paths of all these different types of UAS, planning new, clear routes for each aircraft if and when conflicts arise,” explained Ryan.

Nanduri’s team used Intel Aero Ready to Fly Drones, a commercial drone development system with built-in LTE communications, depth sensing and vision technologies. They performed scenarios that a UAS operator might encounter when it becomes common for commercial drones to fly beyond line of sight. They tested technologies that allow flight path conformance monitoring, dynamic adjustments to drone operation plans and contingency management, which requires coordinated communication between the UAS and the traffic management system both for flight planning and for real-time flight monitoring.

“The outcome of these UTM trials will pave the way for the standardization of how drones will communicate with each other and other unmanned aerial systems,” Nanduri wrote in an editorial after the June testing.

Commercial uses for drones are proliferating. Nanduri’s team recently demonstrated how autonomous drones can conduct bridge inspections using a new application dubbed Intel Mission Control running on an Intel Falcon 8+ System commercial drone. The software allows the drone to create an optimized flight path for capturing images of the bridge. It can simplify and automate a bridge inspection, which otherwise requires a skilled pilot to fly the drone to capture the structure’s many angles, and repeat it later to compare and identify any new fissures or weak spots on the bridge.

“Conventional methods of inspecting or surveying sites can result in hours of downtime, revenue loss, delayed work and sometimes even an increased risk of injury when inspectors or surveyors need to access unusual or hard-to-reach places,” said Anil Nanduri, vice president and general manager of unmanned aviation systems at Intel.

“Deploying a drone to capture aerial data for the same purpose can be safer, faster and more effective. Because of automation, drone technology is easy to use, reliable and can deliver high return on investment (ROI) for companies who use drones.”

Reliable Tracking Systems

A traffic system that that securely exchanges air traffic, weather and other information requires a sufficient amount of wireless communication bandwidth.

Industry leaders are exploring how the advent of 5G wireless network technologies will benefit commercial drone operators, he said.

Drone traffic could increase significantly by 2020, creating the need for air traffic control systems in lower altitudes.

For now, Kopardekar is leveraging existing technologies that allow commercial drone pilots to schedule and plan areas of operation, and then broadcast coordinates so others can avoid or adjust their flight path.

“Tracking can be done through cell phone, radius, satellite-based or beacon-based systems,” he said. “Our goal is not to pick the technologies — our goal is to say this is the performance you need.”

Cell phones can reach approximately 95 percent of the world’s population but service only covers 55 percent of the land mass. Where cellular connectivity is not available, satellite-based communication is the way to go, Kopardekar said.

Drones Get Better Senses

Today, drones aren’t allowed to fly beyond their operators’ sight unless pilots get special permission from the FAA. Many believe regulations will soon allow commercial drones beyond the pilot’s line of sight. Some pilots may use goggles and the drone’s camera, but it’s more likely commercial drone use will rely on automation.

As more drone traffic fills the sky, drones will fly closer to one another. Computer vision technologies like Intel RealSense depth cameras and artificial intelligence allows drones to see, detect objects and quickly avoid collisions with electric wires, trees or other flying drones. Kopardekar said some delivery drones will need to be smart enough to detect if children or people are nearby and adjust the delivery location.

Kopardekar saw it as a giant leap forward in May when the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) announced the UN agency would help the aviation industry bring such a global framework for managing drone traffic at low altitude airspace. Kopardekar said it will require governments and industries, even if some compete with one another, to collaborate.

“All of them have a common interest, which is safe access to airspace,” he said.

]]><p>NASA scientists and technology industry leaders are creating an automated drone traffic system aimed at balancing flight efficiency and safety. By 2020, lower altitude skies could become wickedly dangerous. That’s when an estimated 2.6 million commercial drones will be in the wild, not to mention several million more flying robots owned and operated by consumers. &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/designing-digital-traffic-system-commercial-drones/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/designing-digital-traffic-system-commercial-drones/">Designing a Digital Traffic System for Commercial Drones</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/designing-digital-traffic-system-commercial-drones/Simulation Nation: How Companies Use VR to Create the Futurehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/qKhOJG6Dark/Uncategorizedbusinesscommercial VRPixel Poolretail VRvirtual realityVRVR MotionVR Q2 seriesWILDVicky ThompsonWed, 21 Jun 2017 13:54:53 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19014Auto, architecture and retail industry innovators show how virtual reality technologies will change the way companies do business.

One of the best things about virtual reality (VR) is that in it, anything is possible.

For entrepreneurs across many different industries, that means new opportunities for offering better, more accessible and personal products and services.

“Because VR is a very immersive, interactive way of doing things that would normally be much more expensive, it has the capability to disrupt many existing markets,” said Mike Premi, business development manager of new product innovation at Intel.

“Commercial applications for this technology are endless,” he said.

Innovations in computing and visualization technologies are helping VR developers create simulations that could revolutionize industries by increasing creativity, relevancy, efficiency and even safety, while also bringing cost savings and new revenue generating opportunities. Goldman Sachs estimates the market for VR and AR could grow to $128 billion by 2025.

For many people working in VR today, the tech is just beginning to dip its toe into the well of possibility.

Take a Break, Mannequin

“In retail, there’s a lot that hasn’t changed in the last 30 years,” said Josh Hansen, managing director of PixelPool, a digital interactive company that helps retail brands use VR to design and plan their stores.

“We can create all of that now in virtual reality,” he said. “We give store planners all the pieces and parts in 3D assets. They can build out stores, walk through the space, and be able to view everything within the store exactly how it’s supposed to be.”

With PixelPool’s software, retailers can drag-and-drop every item in a store – from clothes and racks, to light fixtures and wall paint. Retailers can mock up a store in a variety of ways – if it doesn’t work, they simply change it until they land on the perfect set-up. Retailers can create “virtual showrooms” in 3D to sell seasonal assortments into their wholesale accounts.

“What’s great about virtual reality is that it’s limitless. You can design for things that don’t exist yet,” Hansen said. “You can make decisions not only based on what things look like visually, but how much revenue a particular setup would bring in.”

Hansen said digital disruption across the retail industry compels brands to get more creative in order to stay relevant.

“You either adopt technologies and be innovative or your multi-billion dollar company is going to go out of business,” he said. “If you look at some of the biggest companies in the world, they’re all investing heavily in the VR.”

“The technology is finally there,” said Hansen, whose office hums with high-end workstations and more than 30 servers running Intel Xeon processors. “Because the processing and compute power is available today, we’re able to actually develop on it.”

A New Way to Drive

For Keith Maher, developing in VR meant marrying two passions: technology and race-car driving. The co-founder and CEO of VR Motion developed a professional race car simulator that helped Dominic Dobson win one of the world’s toughest races.

“It’s like a gym for drivers,” said Maher. “There’s a lot of sports psychology that shows that if you visualize perfection you can improve your performance.”

Dobson, who’s had seven starts at Indianapolis 500 and is something of an Indy car legend, longed to conquer the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, one of the world’s most arduous courses. It’s raced on public roads, making it impossible to conduct practice runs.

Maher created a PC-based simulation of the course based on the exact car Dobson would drive – incorporating things like the physics of the weight distribution of the car, how it changes in traction as he goes up the hill, even as the gas tank depletes.

Intel’s Mike Premi saw what Maher was doing and encouraged him to take his technology into larger consumer markets.

“I saw so much potential in the segments of the retail experience as well as driver safety training,” Premi said.

VR race courses designed by Keith Maher are like training gyms for drivers.

Using Unreal, a development platform used in VR game design, VR Motion created a virtual showroom where prospective car buyers could select the trim levels, color options and wheel options. Consumers can even “test drive” whatever model they’re interested in, without ever leaving the showroom floor. They simply put on a VR headset and strap in for the ride.

“A lot of the economics of running a dealership is carrying a lot of inventory,” said Premi. “I think what we’re going to see over time is the retail footprint decreasing and the dealerships will go to where the people are, rather than having a big lot with a lot of inventory.”

The next step for VR Motion is creating simulations for driver education – anyone from first-time teenage drivers to police officers and first responders – all of whom can experience the rigors of real-world driving challenges in a safe VR environment.

“I’ve got a young daughter, and I know the day that I hand her across the keys to drive a car I want to make sure she’s fully prepared,” said Maher.

A Better Whiteboard

For architects and builders, the days of relying on whiteboards to evaluate ideas could be replaced by VR experiences, according to Gabe Paez, CEO of WILD. His VR startup in Portland, Ore. is developing a design tool for architects called Massit.

“Massit enables an architect to take an idea from thought to form in real-time so it can be evaluated not only by how it looks but how it feels to be in the space,” Paez said.

Traditionally, architects share ideas through sketches, blueprints or two-dimensional renderings. Paez said Massit lets designers create a building and then step down onto the street level to experience it at life-scale.

“You have to think about creating for virtual reality in an entirely different way than creating for the web or mobile because virtual reality is an experiential platform,” he said. It’s about not only producing digital content to be seen, but understanding how it will be experienced.

Gabe Paez uses VR to help architects experience their buildings before they’re even built.

“You have to find inspiration not only in books but in the world. You’ve got to go to the mountain and try to figure out how it feels when I’m taking a walk through the woods,” he said. “How does that feel? How can I replicate that in a digital world?”

Paez said Massit helps solve a professional dilemma all architects face, which is how to effectively communicate their ideas with others. He said that technology has finally caught up to make these experiences seamless.

“It’s amazing what the hardware we have now can do,” he said. “VR is having its heyday because the GPUs, the CPUs – all of that technology really needed to mature to the point where we could handle the intensity that virtual reality demands.”

For people working in all industries, VR is no longer just a whisper over there, according to PixelPool’s Hansen. It’s actually happening here and now.

“Humans are hard-wired as visual creatures,” he said. “Seventy-five percent of the neurons in our brain that are dedicated to sensory information are dedicated for vision When we experience things visually, then we understand them better than anything. I think that virtual reality does a better job of that than anything I’ve ever seen.”

Editor’s note: Simulation Nation is part of iQ’s special video series on VR creators.

]]><p>Auto, architecture and retail industry innovators show how virtual reality technologies will change the way companies do business. One of the best things about virtual reality (VR) is that in it, anything is possible. For entrepreneurs across many different industries, that means new opportunities for offering better, more accessible and personal products and services. “Because &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/simulation-nation-companies-use-vr-create-future/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/simulation-nation-companies-use-vr-create-future/">Simulation Nation: How Companies Use VR to Create the Future</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/simulation-nation-companies-use-vr-create-future/Pro Athletes and Gamers Train in Virtual Realityhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/Z1gjujfwMDo/UncategorizedgamingsportsStrivrvirtual realityVRVicky ThompsonTue, 01 Aug 2017 14:57:38 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=19004Pro athletes and amateur gamers alike look to VR for real-world advantages in improving sports training and skills to make the perfect play.

Before making one of the greatest comebacks in sports history during 2016’s Super Bowl 51, the New England Patriots spent countless hours training. Unlike most teams, not all this training was done on the field or in the weight room. Much of it was done in virtual reality (VR).

New VR technologies are revolutionizing how players train, with hockey teams, golfers, baseball players, soccer players and more taking advantage of the virtual world to improve their performance in real life.

VR also gives fans a chance to live out their sports-star fantasies on a level (if not entirely real) playing field.

“Sports is the holy grail for virtual reality,” Brad Allen, executive chairman of NextVR, told Sports Business Journal. “I’ve never seen so many chief executives, commissioners, people at that level, all get excited about the same thing.”

That excitement is changing everything about how sports are played, and one day, it may even blur the lines between players and fans.

Athletes Train Like Gamers

VR can help athletes train both their minds and their bodies in ways traditional methods cannot.

“From a physical standpoint, there is only so much time to get on-field repetitions. The human body can only take so much while also trying to stay fresh,” explained Derek Belch, CEO of STRIVR Labs, an immersive performance training company that works with NFL teams, including the Dallas Cowboys, New York Jets and San Francisco 49ers, as well as college and professional players in baseball, hockey and golf.

“As a result, reps come at a premium, and many times teams will only run a play literally once or twice during the week and then expect to be able to run it effectively in the game.”

When using VR to train, athletes can practice more field reps at a lower intensity, instead of running a play at full speed on the real field, said Belch. Even athletes with injuries can use VR to get practice time, giving them a mental edge when getting back into the game.

“From a mental standpoint, traditional film study is often viewed from angles that are completely unrealistic relative to what a player actually sees on the field,” said Belch.

Researchers at Stanford University found that quarterbacks improved decision-making by as much as 30 percent and shaved almost a full second off their decision time after using VR to simulate defensive coverages.

“When providing players with a VR simulation, we can give a first-person perspective of what the player sees on the field,” said Belch. “As such, they are able to learn their position and study their opponents through a more likely vantage point.”

The technology is quickly catching on beyond football, with both coaches and players already reaping the benefits of VR training.

Gamers, whose on-the-field antics are typically relegated to computer screens and gaming consoles, are also benefiting from advancements in VR.

“What VR does particularly well is extend the wish fulfillment part of gameplay,” said Lisa Wong, CEO of Binary Bubbles, a transmedia company that develops interactive VR and augmented reality (AR) experiences.

“Most of us will never be a professional athlete with cheering crowds. VR enables this. It’s very good at giving the player a sense of being someplace else.”

Free Range Games, the company behind Virtual Sports, relied on extensive research and development to create a virtual sports experience that could compete with a real-world match, making gamers the real star of the game.

“All the other sports games and experiences we researched seemed to use game engine physics tuned for swords and space crates. For ping pong, that works well enough if you are just pushing the ball back and forth, but we found that with real players, it just wasn’t enough,” explained Free Range Games’ president and CTO Burke Drane.

After studying how pro-level ping pong players smash the ball, Drane’s team found that they had to calculate the physics for ball movement and racket collisions every 30,000th of a second. This high speed collision simulation cuts down on drag, creating an intense table tennis experience rivaling the World Championship of Ping Pong or even a spirited rec room match.

“We also model the paddle to ball interactions, magnus force and transfer of energy in a more realistic fashion, so that good players are quick to mention how immersive it is,” said Drane.

For other gamers, feeling like an all-star means breaking new ground and dominating in sports that don’t exist in the real world — “vsports” or virtual sports, combine the competitive and physical nature of traditional sports with the immersive experience of VR.

One such vsport, Sparc, is the brainchild of veteran gaming company CCP Games.

Set to debut this year for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR, the sport is like a one-on-one version of futuristic dodgeball.

“After our early experiments with standing VR gameplay, we were excited by the idea of building an original sport designed for the current generation of VR hardware,” said Morgan Godat, executive producer at CCP Atlanta.

“We’ve designed Sparc so that players can express and improve their skill through their physical actions.”

A Future of Merged Realities

As VR technology continues to evolve, the line between athlete and gamer could blur.

The same technology that allows the pros to train smarter could eventually allow them to compete smarter. Former NFL player Chris Kluwe even predicted that future players could wear AR-equipped visors to see everything from ball speed to the seconds left on the game clock while on the field.

Meanwhile, the success of esports competitions such as Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) may help in spawning vsports competitions centered around VR versions of already popular sports like football and basketball or even new vsports like Sparc. IEM draws more than 100,000 spectators to Katowice, Poland, home of the world’s largest esports event.

As for whether virtual sports may ever be able to generate the same kind of widespread societal engagement as real-life events like the Super Bowl, STRIVR Labs’ Belch isn’t ruling it out.

“My first reaction is ‘no way,’ but with the current popularity of video games and esports, it’s definitely possible.”

]]><p>Pro athletes and amateur gamers alike look to VR for real-world advantages in improving sports training and skills to make the perfect play. Before making one of the greatest comebacks in sports history during 2016’s Super Bowl 51, the New England Patriots spent countless hours training. Unlike most teams, not all this training was done &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/pro-athletes-gamers-train-virtual-reality/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/pro-athletes-gamers-train-virtual-reality/">Pro Athletes and Gamers Train in Virtual Reality</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/pro-athletes-gamers-train-virtual-reality/Rise of Artificial Intelligence Opens New Career Pathshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/S2-JKrT0uHA/UncategorizedCourseraIntel Nervana AI AcademyLila IbrahimVicky ThompsonWed, 07 Jun 2017 11:56:51 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18934To meet the growing demand for AI expertise, companies are offering online education courses to prepare the workforce for the future.

Increasingly, computers and devices learn and act on their own using software algorithms, the building blocks for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Getting smartphones to understand voice commands, smart home sprinkler systems to change with the weather and online services to predict what people want requires programmers skilled in AI and ML. Demand for these coding skills is skyrocketing.

Making devices smart and proactive remains controversial to anyone who fears that automation will lead to human job loss. Still, many people believe in the promise of AI and ML. Research firm Accenture analyzed 12 developed economies and found that AI has the potential to double their annual economic growth rates by 2035.

That potential is driving auto, banking, retail and other industries to explore and implement AI and ML into their businesses. It’s creating fierce competition for AI talent, according to Scott Apeland, director of Intel’s Developer Program.

“It’s an excellent time to get into this fast growing field,” said Apeland, who helps lead the Intel Nervana AI Academy, which provides AI training online and at hundreds of universities.

“The convergence of big data, compute power and neural networks has made AI a reality today and opened up a whole new world of possibilities,” said Apeland.

To meet the growing need for AI skills, online education service Coursera teamed up with Intel and Google to build courses that will empower people for future job opportunities.

Lila Ibrahim (on right) believes that online classes democratize computer education, making it available to more people worldwide.

“We think technology could take away about 800,000 jobs, but there’s an opportunity for 3.5 million new ones, and part of those will be filled by people who are reskilling,” said Lila Ibrahim, COO of Coursera. “It’s a net positive as long as we can provide the support to people to reskill and upskill people for jobs that didn’t exist a few years ago.”

She remembers a couple years ago, autonomous driving cars seemed like a radical idea.

“The first time we saw one driving around, we’d take a bunch of pictures,” she said. “Now we’re starting to accept a lot of things that once seemed like science fiction. We believe they will be part of our lives in the future.”

Getting Smart for Jobs of the Future

Coursera courses are available online and via a mobile app. Students can choose from specializations and degrees from 150 of the world’s top universities and educational institutions, including Stanford, Yale and Johns Hopkins universities.

“By September, we’ll have the broadest and deepest catalog of AI content,” said Ibrahim.

She believes it’s critical to quickly democratize access to AI education for everyone, including high school and college students as well as anyone interested in a new career in programming.

“If we can get the technology in the hands of the right people, great things are bound to happen,” Ibrahim said.

“All this data is out there, the technology is out there, the mindset is out there and now is the time to capitalize.”

Founded in 2012, Coursera already has over 26 million registered learners who have taken more than 2,000 courses in dozens of topics, including technology, data science, business and creative arts.

Ibrahim said building new AI courses is a natural fit for Coursera because AI and ML are in the company’s DNA. Its founders are AI and ML pioneers and the technology was used to build the company from the ground up.

Ibrahim said new courses will use AI to teach AI and ML. Classes automatically adjust to deliver more personalized training suited to a student’s performance.

“I missed a question on a quiz, and instead of telling me I missed it, the course actually gave me suggestions based on what I might have done wrong,” she said, describing an ML course she took. “It noticed I was really struggling with a concept, pointed me back to where I needed to go in the course and accelerated my advancement.”

She said people living anywhere with internet can now access the best educational content from top universities, research institutions or corporations.

As the demand for coding skills increases, online training companies like Coursera are offering AI and ML classes.

“Making this content available to the entrepreneurs living in Brazil, Africa or Asia allows them build new skills to solve local problems,” said Ibrahim.

Problem Solving Skills for the Digital Era

According to a study by Pew Research Center, 87 percent of workers believe it’s essential to receive training and develop new job skills throughout their work life in order to keep up with changes in the workplace and technology.

The study stressed the importance of increasing access to educational programs to help people learn how to work with data and algorithms, to implement 3D modeling and work with 3D printers, and to apply the newly emerging capabilities in AI and augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR).

“My guess is there are things we can’t even imagine right now which AI will help us solve,” Ibrahim says. “It’s not until we give people the access to this learning that they can help discover and link the potential of what the data can tell us.”

New educational programs are providing more content and choices, whether it’s from universities or companies. The Intel Nervana AI Academy, which provides intermediate level AI courses for Coursera, also offers free workshops at hundreds of universities worldwide, recruiting and training student ambassadors to run AI meetups and workshops on campus.

The Intel Nervana AI Academy conducts free workshops at universities worldwide, including Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Apeland said students are encouraged to use their new AI skills for good.

Just as industrialization and electricity changed the way humans worked and lived 100 years ago, Apeland said AI could transform many aspects of our daily lives. Online education gives people the opportunity to get ahead of that curve and gain the knowledge necessary to become tomorrow’s innovators.

“There are so many opportunities to do new things,” said Apeland. “There will always be fear that technology is replacing jobs. Some jobs will go away, but I would expect a lot more will get created.”

Lore has it that English shepherds in the 16th century swung their staffs, called criccs, like bats and the game of cricket was born. It has grown into a sport of intense strategy, technique and athletic skill, and today cricket is one of the world’s most popular sports, attracting billions of fans. Its ability to evolve and innovate while maintaining timeworn traditions set the stage for what is being called “the first smart cricket tournament”: the 2017 International Cricket Council (ICC) Champions Trophy, played in the U.K. June 1-18.

Eight top cricketing countries – Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka – compete over 18 days across three venues. Popular throughout the Commonwealth of Nations (formerly called the British Commonwealth), cricket inspires religious devotion among fans.

The ICC is turning to new technologies in an effort to spread that passion for the sport to other parts of the world, and move cricket deeper into the digital age.

“The innovations we’re working with Intel on for the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 are like nothing we’ve seen in the sport before,” said ICC Chief Executive David Richardson.

Fans watching live broadcasts will see new data about bat swings and field conditions, while tournament attendees get to experience the thrill and science of cricket simulated in virtual reality (VR).

Cricket, like baseball, is a very quantitative sport, said Anuj Dua, who grew up playing “gully cricket” on the streets of Bombay and now is director of business development and marketing for Intel’s New Technology Group.

“You win or lose a game of cricket by scoring score runs than the opposition,” he said. “But measuring and analyzing those runs have been largely under explored. That’s about to change.”

For the first time, cricket fans will see bat swing data live during matches and dive deeper into details about a successful hit.

Wireless smart sensors the size of a bottle cap, fitted at the bottom of bat handles, will analyze eight different aspects of a batter’s swing in real time.

Dua said this new data will spark colorful conversations during live broadcasts and give fans a deeper appreciation for the game.

“We are deploying a range of technology at the event as part of our ongoing effort to bring a new level of data analytics to sports and to revolutionize how athletes train, coaches teach, scouts evaluate talent and fans enjoy sports,” said James Carwana, general manager of the Intel Sports Group.

Speculur BatSense with Intel Inside at the Intel / ICC Official Innovation Partner launch at the Oval cricket ground, London.

The ICC Champions Trophy tournament will also feature Intel’s drone-assisted mapping system that captures field condition data and in-stadium VR technologies that let fans bat in a life-like cricket match.

Cricket Bat Sensor

Intel engineers used a coin-sized Intel Curie compute module – a wireless data processing hub with motion sensors and built in algorithms – to create a tiny puck that fits into a sleeve covering the bat handle. It weighs less than 25 grams or less than an ounce.

The sensor measures eight classifications of a batter’s swing, including back lift angle, follow-through angle, impact angle, maximum bat speed, bat speed at impact, time to impact, and 3D swing and plane path. These measurements can be televised, so fans see more precisely a batter’s performance.

The technology can help players, coaches and fans distinguish how batsmen adjusts to different bowlers, said Dua.

The cricket bat sensor was born out of Intel’s New Technology Group and developed with Speculur, a smart wearables and consumer “Internet of Things” company that plans to bring the “BatSense” puck and companion smartphone app to market later this year.

Intel principal engineer and amateur cricket player Narayan Sundararajan built an R&D lab in a discrete warehouse east of Silicon Valley, and filled it with a cricketing pitching machine and batting cage, wrapped in safety nets.

“Initially we needed to understand how a bat moves in 3D space,” said Sundararajan. “We studied swings using vision cameras, radar and other types of motion capture systems.”

Sundararajan and his team met with coaches to understand what they look for in a cricket player, and how they teach fundamentals and nuances of the game. Then they invited players from the Bay Area Cricket Association, NCCA and Northern California Cricket Association to visit the lab to use the test gear.

“It was very important to have a breadth of players with different styles to really make sure that the algorithms produce accurate measures,” he said.

Ready for the Tournament

For the ICC Champions Trophy tournament, the bat sensor pucks were modified with ultra-wide band wireless technology, which will help the data reach longer distances more reliably than the Bluetooth technology natively built into the Intel Curie module. It also avoids radio wave interference caused by fans and others using their smartphones during matches.

Ahead of the tournament, Dua, Sundararajan and the rest of the Intel team were frenetically finalizing things, anxious to see how cricket fans will react to the new technologies.

“Commentators commonly talk about bat speed or a perfectly timed shot, but there’s no data to define those observations,” said Sundararajan. “Now fans can actually see real data and compare.”

This technology is opening up new possibilities, said Dua.

“I think it’ll become the new normal, where people will expect more meaningful stats and analytics,” Dua said.

]]><p>A sport steeped in tradition gets a tech infusion, as real-time data helps analyze the action. Lore has it that English shepherds in the 16th century swung their staffs, called criccs, like bats and the game of cricket was born. It has grown into a sport of intense strategy, technique and athletic skill, and today cricket &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/widgets-to-wickets-cricket-tech-immerses-fans-in-the-game/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/widgets-to-wickets-cricket-tech-immerses-fans-in-the-game/">Widgets to Wickets: Cricket Tech Immerses Fans in the Game</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/widgets-to-wickets-cricket-tech-immerses-fans-in-the-game/Frieda’s Makes Produce a Family Affairhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/UVUL_GaZ0Vg/Uncategorized#SHEOWNSITFrieda’sFrieda’s Specialty ProduceKaren CaplanKelly McLainThu, 08 Jun 2017 09:04:42 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18813When Karen Caplan took over the family produce business, she followed in her mother’s footsteps, never dissuaded by the fact that no one had ever heard of a sunchoke.

A whimsical, sometimes quirky vibe fills the air. It’s not unheard of to see someone walking into a conference wearing a cape, a laptop in one hand and a wand in the other. The 80,000 square-foot warehouse is busy with forklifts shuttling goods between micro-climate industrial refrigerators, and people packing boxes and filling orders.

The operation is immaculate and efficient. The same words can describe CEO Karen Caplan, 61, who is well manicured, articulate and commanding. She’s the type of woman that makes people sit up a little taller, try a little harder.

“You have to have passion about your work. Whatever your business is,” she said. “It was my destiny to be in the food business and to be running a company. I love it.”

Frieda’s Produce brings exotic fruits and vegetables to American retailers like Wal-Mart, Trader Joe’s, Safeway, Albertsons, Whole Foods and hundreds of others. Caplan runs the 75-employee company with a mix of fearlessness and passion.

Frieda Feeds Family Tradition

Caplan is the daughter of 94-year-old Dr. Frieda Rapoport Caplan, who started the produce distribution company in 1962 by introducing the kiwi fruit to American consumers. She trail-blazed the way for future generations by becoming the first woman to own and operate a produce company in the exclusively male L.A. produce market.

She was the first woman voted “Produce Man of the Year,” and won many accolades for being a pioneering entrepreneur in a time when women simply weren’t.

“Part of the key to her success is that she didn’t see the obstacles,” said Caplan. “For her, they really weren’t there.”

Every day her mom arrived at the market at 2 a.m. to meet buyers, always wearing a dress, pantyhose and high heels despite the cold of the night. Her business was about convincing people they needed produce they’d never even seen before.

Her mom was hardworking but her success came from long hours – she’d work 16-hour days when others in the industry worked eight. However, when Caplan finished college with plans to take over the business, she thought there must be another way.

Three generations of women entrepreneurs work in the family business (from left): Jackie Caplan Wiggins, Frieda Caplan, Karen Caplan and Karen’s daughter, Alex Jackson Berkley.

In 1990, Caplan bought the business with her sister, Jackie Caplan Wiggins. They’d grown up in the industry, stuffing envelopes and working the fruit stand since age 10.

“It was pretty uncomplicated, pretty simple in the beginning. We were handwriting orders. There was zero technology in the business at all,” Caplan said. “What was complicated was we were selling products that no one had ever heard of, tasted or seen, and there was virtually no demand for it.”

But like her mother, she doesn’t see the obstacles.

“When I’m describing a spiky orange horned melon to a buyer, it doesn’t even cross my mind that they wouldn’t want to buy it,” she said.

Caplan was eager to grow the business and bring it into the digital age, both for her company but also to stay relevant to younger digital natives – people growing up knowing nothing of a world without the internet or computers.

“I was cautious and respectful of what my mom had done to build the business to what it was. But I took advantage of my different view of things to start making changes,” she said. “I had a vision of where the company could go. It was like the world was my oyster – my oyster mushroom.”

Caplan writes a weekly blog about seemingly disparate things – the Super Bowl, getting a good night’s sleep, the merits of the ugli fruit – but the thread that weaves these tales together is leadership.

Caplan is never not running her business.

“We’re very fast adapters in all areas of technology,” she said. “In 1996, we put up the first website in the produce industry. We had to print a paper brochure to mail it out to our customers to tell them we were on the internet.”

Today, Frieda’s website shows live feeds of produce growing in the field or products ready to ship from the warehouse, giving customers a bird’s eye view of the produce journey.

Sunchokes may not be well known, but that didn’t stop Frieda’s Specialty Produce from introducing the vegetable to consumers.

She recently switched her employees from desktop computers to laptops.

“Our employees have to be aware of what’s going on 24/7,” she said, adding that the portability not only allows her staff to work anywhere, but also with each other more collaboratively.

Her own laptop, a Dell XPS 13 with Intel Core i7 vPro processor, allows her move between work and home without having to sync anything.

“It’s been an amazing tool to enable my creativity,” she said.

Fruit and Fearlessness

Caplan believes that in addition to passion, small business owners must be willing to take risks.

“It is an absolute requirement to be fearless when you run a business,” she said. “Sometimes you’re going in a direction no one else has been before. And the leader has to be leading the charge.”

She believes in the power of good manners – treating staff with respect and encouraging a fun working atmosphere. She regularly sends customers and growers personal notes on their birthdays.

Like her mother before her, Caplan believes that authenticity is key.

“People know when you’re faking it,” she said. “So, if you’re not genuine, you’d be silly to think that people don’t recognize that.”

Caplan and her sister took over where their mother left off, bringing Frieda’s into more stores around the world, and navigating the company into the digital age.

More than 75 employees run Frieda’s Produce.

But it’s still hard to shake their mother’s strong work ethic.

“It’s not completely unusual on a Friday afternoon at 5 p.m. that I look across and there’s my sister sitting in her office and I’m sitting in my office and there are no other employees around. I call her up and say, ‘What is wrong with this picture? We’re still doing what mom did.’”

Running a business is exhausting but Caplan said there’s nothing else she’d rather do. After all, she gets to have her passion fruit and eat it too.

Editor’s note: Karen Caplan’s story is part of iQ’s #SHEOWNSIT series, which spotlights women small business owners and their journeys of success.

]]><p>When Karen Caplan took over the family produce business, she followed in her mother’s footsteps, never dissuaded by the fact that no one had ever heard of a sunchoke. Frieda’s Specialty Produce occupies a massive two-story building in Los Alamitos, Calif., just 20 miles south of Los Angeles. The office and test kitchen take up &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/she-owns-it-friedas-specialty-produce/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/she-owns-it-friedas-specialty-produce/">Frieda’s Makes Produce a Family Affair</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/she-owns-it-friedas-specialty-produce/Jigger No More: Cocktail Tech Mixes the Perfect Drinkhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/ppbQFcroWS4/UncategorizedBernoolicocktail techmixology technologySomabarVicky ThompsonWed, 21 Jun 2017 14:47:56 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18709Budding mixologists no longer have to measure, muddle, shake or stir the perfect cocktail. New mixology technology helps hosts serve premium cocktails on demand.

Press a button for a perfectly concocted margarita or mint julep — it’s time to celebrate the future of cocktail technology.

“In the past few years, we’ve seen robots converted into robotenders on cruise ships and vending-machine-like devices capable of automating a round of cocktails,” said Ann Tuennerman, a leading expert in the cocktail industry and founder of Tales of the Cocktail, the world’s premier cocktail festival.

“Tech tools are only effective if they give people the ability to transport the leisure, convenience and attractiveness of the public bar into the private home,” she said.

Keurig for Cocktails

Popping in a pod is no longer reserved just for brewing up coffee.

Dubbed as “the world’s first app-controlled robotic bartending appliance,” Somabar ($599, pre-order online) is controlled wirelessly by smartphone and includes seven refillable pods for adding a favorite spirit or mixer. It electronically detects the ingredients and suggests drink recipes from a menu of more than 300 craft cocktails. Its self-cleaning system makes setup and break down a snap.

“Somabar is the hardest working bartender you’ll ever meet,” said Dylan Purcell-Lowe, Somabar’s co-founder and CEO. “[It] measures, mixes and pours every cocktail in under 10 seconds.”

Purcell-Lowe started Somabar so everyone — consumers and restaurants alike — could have a personal bartender without the cost. The robo-bartender currently mixes drinks in a limited number of restaurants in Los Angeles and will be available for consumers in late 2017.

Home mixologists may spend less time making drinks and more time mixing with friends with the Bartesian ($299, pre-order online).

The single-serve cocktail machine offers six cocktail pods: margarita, sex on the beach, cosmopolitan, zest martini, uptown rocks and Bartesian breeze. Mixing cocktails is as easy as making a cup of coffee.

Home bartenders simply fill the glass reservoirs with the basic spirits: gin, rum, vodka or tequila, then insert disposable recyclable capsules that contain real fruit juice, non-alcoholic liquor and premium bitters. They then choose strength — from mocktail to triple shot — and hit pour. In 18 seconds, the Bartesian makes a perfect cocktail and even cleans itself.

Jigger No More

Cocktail tech isn’t limited to mixing machines.

Bernooli ($99-$349, pre-order online) is a Bluetooth-enabled smart spout, which attaches to liquor bottles and mixers and takes the guesswork out of how much to pour.

Users choose a cocktail on the Bernooli app, and the LED rings on the spouts light up to show which bottles are needed to make the selected drink. All the mixologist needs to do is pour — the spouts auto-measure the correct proportion for each ingredient. Bernooli also offers the option to make stronger or weaker drinks based on guests’ preferences.

Bernooli helps home bartenders make hundreds of cocktails and the app even suggests drinks based on the available liquor. Users can also add custom recipes to the app and share with other mixologists around the world.

Wine Tech

The Keurig concept of making the perfect temperature beverage has expanded into the wine industry, thanks to French company 10-Vins. D-Vine ($997, pre-order online) offers single serve glasses of wine via a high-tech decanting machine.

D-Vine users buy sommelier-selected cylinders of wine affixed with RFID technology. The decanting machine reads the chip on the bottle to determine the ideal serving conditions. Then the D-Vine aerates and brings the wine to the perfect temperature based on the varietal. No wine will be served before its time, which in this case is less than a minute.

Bartesian cocktail pods make it easy for home mixologists to make classic drinks.

Oxygen is the enemy of most wine, eventually turning open bottles of wine to vinegar, according to Popular Science.

The Coravin Model Two ($299.95) lets wine lovers drink wine without removing the cork, which is great for pouring just one glass. The device clamps on to a bottle of wine, inserting a thin wall needle into the cork, allowing the wine to flow. Pressurized argon gas helps reseal the cork to prevent oxidation.

There’s even technology for preventing unpleasant reactions to wine, including the headaches, congestion and skin flushing many wine lovers experience. Stir The Wand ($24.99) by PureWine in a wine glass for at least three minutes and it will absorb the sulfites and histamines that trigger adverse reactions to wine.

Ingredient kits called PicoPaks contain the necessary grains and hops that allow brewers to recreate craft beer from recipes of breweries around the world — all at the push of a button. Once the two-hour brew cycle finishes, the beer brews in a keg for a week, then the brewer adds carbonate and it’s bottoms up.

Brewers can also come up with their own concoction using Pico’s freestyle program.

“These are incredible innovations, but we’ve only begun to test the waters of what is possible,” said cocktail expert Tuennerman. As cocktail technology evolves, budding mixologists and busy party hosts will have more ways to celebrate.

]]><p>Budding mixologists no longer have to measure, muddle, shake or stir the perfect cocktail. New mixology technology helps hosts serve premium cocktails on demand. Press a button for a perfectly concocted margarita or mint julep — it’s time to celebrate the future of cocktail technology. New tech gadgets — from single-serve mixed drink machines to &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/cocktail-tech-mixes-perfect-drink/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/cocktail-tech-mixes-perfect-drink/">Jigger No More: Cocktail Tech Mixes the Perfect Drink</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/cocktail-tech-mixes-perfect-drink/Got Game? Retailers Play It Big with Gamificationhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/QfhKlBWtWmU/Uncategorizedgamificationretail gamificationVicky ThompsonFri, 16 Jun 2017 10:42:58 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18671In the never-ending race for consumer attention, retail brands are adding games to their marketing strategies.

On a cloudy Tuesday in March, half a dozen passersby gathered at the windows of Ted Baker’s flagship clothing store in London’s Mayfair neighborhood.

“Hello, Nosey Neighbor!” a sign in the window reads, while a family of mannequins model the store’s spring 2017 campaign, “Keeping Up with the Bakers.” The Bakers are an archetypal suburban family who star in their own TedPix, which illustrates the drama that unfolds in their fictional lives.

Anyone walking past the storefront can find themselves captured by the display — quite literally. When someone presses a hand onto a hotspot on the window, a camera clicks, showing the shopper’s reflection with green beams zapping out of their eyes.

Selfies abound.

Marketers are turning to gaming to get consumers to pay attention when they aren’t in store, according to Rachel Mushahwar, general manager of Intel’s Industry Sales Group in the Americas.

“In all industries, we’re seeing brands using gameplay as a way to increase consumer brand involvement, interaction, intimacy and influence, which results in increased revenue,” she said.

In It to Win It

According to Retail Touchpoints, gamification in business is defined as using elements of game playing to drive consumer engagement and interaction with products.

Gamification can turn consumers into brand enthusiasts that will not only advertise for free — but also be loyal consumers, said Claudia Schindela, global head of gaming at Spreadshirt, an e-commerce platform focused on gaming merchandise.

“A well done, creative and easy-to-use gamification mechanic will attract press and influencers who will share it with their fanbases,” she said.

Joe Carella, assistant dean for executive education at the University of Arizona, also recognizes that gaming not only captivates loyal customers — it captures a coveted audience for many retailers: millennials.

“Millennials increasingly socialize and learn through games,” said Carella, who conducts university research on business leaders and disruptive strategies.

Retailers like Starbucks use rewards to drive brand loyalty.

“Gamification adds an element of amusement, pleasure and accomplishment to what would otherwise be perceived as a chore,” said Carella.

In general, said Joe Jensen, worldwide vice president and general manager for Intel’s Retail Solutions Division, millennials want to influence what they buy and they expect highly personalized service and products.

Jensen also believes gaming can help reignite the spark with weary consumers.

Playing for Loyalty

Gamification has helped brands in many industries re-imagine the consumer experience, according to Intel’s Mushahwar, but the fun and games are nothing new.

“Starbucks uses gamification every day,” she pointed out. Card users earn stars and rewards with every cup of coffee they buy. “Gamification drives loyalty. If you have the Starbucks app, you are playing.”

Nike also uses gamification by encouraging users to track their running distance, speed and time, and compare key metrics with those of their peers.

The NFL is partnering with Cirque du Soleil this fall for a live NFL experience in Times Square, complete with augmented reality game play.

]]><p>In the never-ending race for consumer attention, retail brands are adding games to their marketing strategies. On a cloudy Tuesday in March, half a dozen passersby gathered at the windows of Ted Baker&#8217;s flagship clothing store in London&#8217;s Mayfair neighborhood. “Hello, Nosey Neighbor!” a sign in the window reads, while a family of mannequins model the &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/got-game-retailers-play-big-gamification/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/got-game-retailers-play-big-gamification/">Got Game? Retailers Play It Big with Gamification</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/got-game-retailers-play-big-gamification/IPC Gives Film Students the Answer to “What’s Next?”http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/6j8oIgQjmOg/UncategorizedDarryl AdamsIPCKatherine St. LawrenceMeriam BraanaasYogi GrahamDeb Miller LandauTue, 30 May 2017 08:25:06 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18579Top film students gain brand storytelling experience with internships at Intel Production Corps.

Many students graduate from film school with a pocketful of student loans wondering, “What do I do now?”

Meriam Braanaas, a 26-year-old Norwegian national who received a master’s degree in film production at the University of Southern California’s (USC) School of Cinematic Arts, wondered the same. But then she heard about an opportunity that would give her the valuable commercial experience she didn’t get in film school.

“Everyone tells you it’s time to look for a job,” she said. Instead, she applied as a cinematographer at the Intel Production Corps (IPC).

IPC is a three- to six-month internship program designed to give top film school students experience at Intel Global Production Labs (IGPL), the production wing of Intel’s internal advertising agency, called Agency Inside.

Yogiraj “Yogi” Graham, director of production for IGPL, created the IPC as a way to connect with the youthful, tech-savvy audience the company wants to better engage.

“If we’re going to be relevant to millennials, and target them as people that we want to speak to in a meaningful way,” he said, “we realized we needed to bring them into the pipeline of our own creation.”

Getting into the program can by competitive, with hundreds of applicants vying for just a few coveted positions each term. To apply, the students need to submit a reel of their best work, get faculty recommendations and write a haiku about their favorite movie.

“The haiku, even if it’s not a perfect haiku, shows attention and creativity,” said Graham. “It tells us a lot about them.” If students don’t submit the haiku, they won’t be considered for the program, he said.

Getting to Work

“The minute I came there, I felt much more part of an advertising agency than a corporation,” Braanaas said. “It was incredible to be able to create content with a budget you never see in film school.”

She said she was surprised by the breadth of talent working at Intel, including veterans of the film and television industries who could act as mentors and share real-world advice.

Braanaas and the other interns went to weekly production meetings and were expected to contribute to the team.

“I never felt like an ‘intern,’” she said. “I felt like I was hired to do a job that I had been chosen to do. I really wanted to put my best work forward, and it was expected of me to do my best work,” she said.

A faded star, Vanity floating in the water, And action!—Meriam Braanaas, inspired by Sunset Boulevard

Braanaas wrote and directed the story of Darryl Adams, a long-time Intel employee who has a degenerative disease that’s causing vision loss. Adams is working with colleagues to create a haptic feedback vest using Intel’s RealSense 3D depth-sensing camera technology. The vest translates the camera’s vision into feeling by vibrating when Adams walks near an object.

“We really wanted to land an idea that we were all excited about,” Braanaas said. “We got in touch with Darryl, and I ended up writing and directing that piece.”

As an athlete and long-time cyclist, Adams has been forced to get creative about keeping in shape. His garage, a personal sports haven complete with an indoor bike trainer, is featured in the video.

Meriam Braanaas and Darryl Adams discuss how to tell the story about his adaptive vest.

“It was important for me as a director to make that room special, a way to honor his being an athlete,” Braanaas said.

Several teammates also worked on the project (listed below) and Braanaas said working in a diverse team – from different countries, backgrounds and schools – pushed the levels of collaboration and creativity.

“Everyone contributed their best work to tell this really meaningful story,” she said.

Reid Davenport also worked on the project, which had special meaning to him because he knows what it’s like to live and work in the world while being physically challenged.

“Filmmaking is very physical,” Davenport said. He suggested that rather than trying to hide their challenges, young filmmakers can take advantage of them.

Armed glares from their roofs, The police swarmed in with force, Moral strife ensued.—Reid Davenport, inspired by Let the Fire Burn

Named a TED Fellow, Davenport recently gave a TED Talk in Vancouver, where he spoke about how filmmaking allowed him to show his unique perspective. For example, when he attaches a camera to his wheelchair, he gives the audience a unique view they may have never experienced.

He said IPC gave him yet another set of tools, providing commercial experience he hadn’t gained at Stanford.

“Documentary and commercial work share a lot of the same attributes,” said Reid. “So it felt very complementary.”

To recruit students for the program, Graham and Katherine St Lawrence, operations lead for IGPL, visit top film and communications schools in the U.S., including USC, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), New York University (NYU), Boston University and Stanford. To qualify for the program, students need to be at the top of their classes.

“Students come in one of five disciplines: producer, editor, sound designer, motion designer or cinematographer,” said St Lawrence. “They need to have a base level of skill. But they’re here absolutely to develop those skills and to learn from professionals in those fields.”

She said the interns — four to six per term — are given full room and board plus a stipend, but they must be able to handle the rigors of working in their chosen professions. In other words, they need to rise to job, not simply go through the motions of an internship.

“That level of respect kind of grounds them, and gives them ownership and self-direction,” she said. “But they have to go and figure out how to execute.”

To make sure the programs have students year-round beyond the U.S. academic calendar, St Lawrence said they began accepting international students from the U.K. and Australia.

Sound designers Michael Johnson and Michalianna Theofanopoulou came to IPC from the U.K.’s National Film and Television School.

The interns work on a range of projects – from the videos they create as a team to high-profile productions. “They work on any and every project coming through our group,” said St Lawrence, adding that the teams are encouraged to go out and find good stories.

“It’s all about great storytelling,” said Graham. “Our mission at IGPL is to both mine those stories, and tell them in the most powerful and engaging way as possible.” He said sometimes the students work on really cool projects, but also on more basic deliverables the brand needs.

“We expect them to kind of be owners of the brand,” he said, “We’ve found them to be pretty receptive to that thinking, because that’s work experience. It’s real.”

Building a Career

For Braanaas, now working as a filmmaker in L.A., the experience showed her the importance of storytelling, whether it’s for documentary films or advertising for a brand.

“To come out of school and be part of a production company with five other amazing people who come from schools all over the world was just really meaningful,” she said. “I feel very lucky to have been a part of this program.”

Starting on the first day of the program, the students’ haikus hang on the wall. Strangers at that point, the students don’t know who wrote what poem.

At the end of the program, they had to name the author of each haiku. “They all guessed it, they all got it right,” said Graham. After having worked and lived together for months, the interns know each other well.

“They learn a lot from each other,” said Graham. “And we learn a lot from them, too.”

]]><p>Top film students gain brand storytelling experience with internships at Intel Production Corps. Many students graduate from film school with a pocketful of student loans wondering, “What do I do now?” Meriam Braanaas, a 26-year-old Norwegian national who received a master’s degree in film production at the University of Southern California’s (USC) School of Cinematic &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/ipc-intel-production-corps/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/ipc-intel-production-corps/">IPC Gives Film Students the Answer to “What’s Next?”</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/ipc-intel-production-corps/How the Next Generation is Building Artificial Intelligencehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/0SmfCMbnpZU/UncategorizedISEFISEF 2017Deb Miller LandauTue, 30 May 2017 08:23:57 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18614Teen scientists use machine learning and neural networks to detect and diagnose diseases, track space debris, design drones and justify conclusions at Intel ISEF 2017.

While sentient computer beings like HAL from the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey or Samantha from the 2013 film Her may still be on the distant horizon, some forms of artificial intelligence (AI) are already improving lives.

At the 2017 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) – where nearly 1,800 high school students gathered to present original research and compete for more than $4 million in prizes – the next generation of scientists used machine learning and artificial neural networks to find solutions to some of today’s most vexing problems.

“AI is critical to our future,” said Christopher Kang, a budding computer scientist from Richland, Washington, who won an ISEF award in the robotics and intelligent machines category.

Chris Kang developed an app that can detect skin cancer.

“Humans have a limit as to how much data we can analyze,” he said. “AI is extremely powerful in analyzing huge volumes of data and correlating it. It can be used to understand the already existing research we have and assimilate it. It can then analyze additional data and turn it into actionable insights.”

AI as Physician’s Assistant

After his father’s brush with skin cancer, Kang created an artificial neural network capable of identifying moles and skin lesions that are potentially cancerous.

The teen created an app that lets users take an image of a questionable mole or lesion. The app is then able to determine if the skin anomaly appears cancerous, with a level of accuracy commensurate with a dermatologist.

“Patients can get enough information to know whether or not they need to see a dermatologist,” Kang said.

“Early detection is crucial because once skin cancer metastasizes, the probability of a five-year survival rate drops to a fifth of what it would be before,” he said.

AI for Diagnosis

Gaurav Behera of Rochester, Minnesota used a similar approach to develop an artificial neural network that identifies sickle cell anemia from a microscopic image of a blood smear.

“Sickle cell anemia is mostly present in the developing world, and access to education and diagnosis is often lacking or very expensive to find,” said Behera, whose great aunt died of the disease in India.

Gaurav Behera is using AI to advance sickle cell research.

“What this application does is bring down the cost of diagnosing sickle cell anemia and make the process more efficient.”

Currently, the diagnosis involves a tedious process of counting each of the 300 to 400 cells in a blood smear, where only 10 or so might be misshapen sickle cells. Behera’s app takes human error out of the equation.

“Since I’m having it centralized in one location, it can update itself constantly,” he said. “So the neural network can learn and become more precise over time.”

AI for Predictions

While the most common use of machine learning to date has focused on classification tasks, neural networks also can be used to track data and make predictions.

Amber Yang of Winter Park, Florida won a top prize at ISEF for developing an artificial neural network capable of predicting the location of space debris, which can be a hazard for spacecraft. She created an algorithm that can train the network to recognize specific debris clouds in space and, based on past trajectories, predict future locations.

Using historical stock data from Apple, Amazon, Google, GoPro and Tesla, the teen entered the first three quarters of a year’s data, allowing the network to predict the fourth quarter.

The model proved to be accurate with less than a 0.15 percent difference between predicted and actual stock value more than 50 percent of the time.

When additional variables were input, Moeykens said, “the neural network met the constraints by training itself and improving its accuracy.”

Machine vs. Human

Robert van Zyl of Peachtree City, Georgia won an award in engineering mechanics for his research on whether machine learning could outperform human designers in engineering design.

He pitted his machine learning algorithms against humans in the design of complex power trains for racing drones.

“Racing drones were chosen because of the high stakes of the competition and the high complexity of the engineering problem,” said van Zyl.

The budding engineer provided both sides with the characteristics and performance data of multiple brushless motors and propellers in various combinations, and tasked them with selecting the best performance design for three variables: maximum thrust, efficiency and dynamic punch.

In the end, the machine won out.

“Despite some good performances by humans, the AI algorithms beat the best humans in two of the three contests,” said van Zyl. “The machine learning algorithms were particularly impressive in finding the optimal powertrain design to optimize punch, arguably the most important dimension in drone racing.”

AI for Good

“A problem with neural networks is you can’t look inside them, you can’t see what they’re thinking,” said Robbie Barrat of Shenandoah, West Virginia. “They’re like a black box.”

Barrat’s research seeks to make the inner workings of artificial neural networks more transparent.

Robbie Barrat is using neural networks to justify themselves.

He developed two separate machine learning models that enable neural networks to return justifications with their conclusions in both prediction and classification problems.

“The justifications not only strengthen the conclusions provided by the network, but also provide insight into the ‘thought process’ of the neural networks,” he said.

For anybody still worried about a worst-case sci-fi scenario, Barrat said he believes such transparency can help ensure that, in the future, AI continues to serve humanity and not the other way around.

“Honestly, AI is still in its infancy,” said Barrat, noting that it took until the 1990s for computing power to be powerful enough to make neural networks practical. “But it’s here to stay. Because neural networks are very powerful tools and, given enough computational power, they can do anything.”

]]><p>Teen scientists use machine learning and neural networks to detect and diagnose diseases, track space debris, design drones and justify conclusions at Intel ISEF 2017. While sentient computer beings like HAL from the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey or Samantha from the 2013 film Her may still be on the distant horizon, some forms of &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/isef-artificial-intelligence/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/isef-artificial-intelligence/">How the Next Generation is Building Artificial Intelligence</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/isef-artificial-intelligence/Teen’s “Flying Wing” Aircraft Wins Global Science Fairhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/ti60tzrNRWo/UncategorizedDeb Miller LandauTue, 30 May 2017 08:27:06 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18552Germany’s Ivo Zell won the top prize at Intel ISEF 2017 for his “flying wing” aircraft, while runners-up awards honored a neural network that tracks space debris and a laser-based wireless network.

Five years ago in Lorch, Germany, then 13-year-old Ivo Zell got hooked on model planes. Intrigued by aeronautical design, he read everything he could on the subject. He discovered the work of the Horton Brothers – Walter and Reimar – two German pilots who designed a series of “flying wing” airplanes in the 1930s and early 1940s.

Though the Hortons’ work got sidetracked with WWII and its aftermath, Zell, now 18, couldn’t help but wonder why their designs had virtually disappeared.

As a result, Zell designed and constructed a prototype of a new, improved flying wing aircraft. This undertaking landed Zell first place, the Gordon E. Moore Award and $75,000 at this year’s Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF), the world’s largest pre-college science competition.

Zell’s prototype features an unusual bell-shaped lift profile for improved stability, and the telemetry required to fly the wing.

Many flying wing aircraft are unstable in flight because they have little or no fuselage or tail, but Zell’s modified aircraft operates smoothly and safely in challenging flight situations, without significantly sacrificing fuel efficiency.

The Runners-Up

Two runners-up, Amber Yang, 18, of Windermere, Florida, and Valerio Pagliarino, 17, of Castelnuovo Calcea, Italy, received Intel Foundation Young Scientist Awards and $50,000 scholarships for research they presented at the event.

Tracking Space Junk

Probing potential applications for artificial intelligence, Yang developed a neural network capable of predicting the locations of space debris.

An estimated 500,000 pieces of trash orbit the planet and pose a potential hazard for spacecraft.

Inspired after seeing media coverage about a satellite that China had exploded in space, Yang adapted an algorithm to train her artificial neural network to recognize specific debris clouds in space and, based on past trajectories, predict future locations.

Not only is Yang’s method novel in tracking space debris (mathematical models were used before), it also represents a new approach to the use of neural networks.

“Artificial neural networks have primarily been used for photo and image identification and classification,” said Yang. “They haven’t been applied to tracking and predicting kinematic motions and patterns before.”

As a result, applications are virtually limitless.

Yang has already expanded her work to other astronomy projects, such as tracking the trajectories of asteroids and comets. Additionally, her approach could be valuable in tracking rising sea levels as scientists work to combat global warming.

Connecting Global Communities

Valerio Pagliarino created a prototype of a laser-based, wireless, high-speed network to bring internet connectivity to remote locales.

He said his motivation for the project was born largely of frustration. Growing up in a small rural town in northwest Italy, Pagliarino frequently experienced difficulties in trying to connect to the internet.

“Areas without good web access are disadvantaged,” he said, “and the problem becomes worse over time because the new web apps require more and more bandwidth.”

For this budding engineer, the status quo was unacceptable. So he worked to find a solution.

Using off-the-shelf components, Pagliarino designed and built a small laser-based network, which takes advantage of already existing infrastructure to deliver high speed connectivity.

“An internet connection is one of the most important resources not only for companies, but for all people,” said Pagliarino, who believes that his research may play a role in bridging the digital divide.

“Intel congratulates this year’s winners and all of the participants, who inspire us with their talent and passion for changing the world,” said Rosalind Hudnell, Intel vice president of Corporate Affairs and president of the Intel Foundation.

“As a diverse and inclusive group developing groundbreaking solutions to global challenges, these young people represent the next generation of innovators,” she said. “We’re proud to support all of the finalists as they endeavor to improve the world around them.”

The competition featured nearly 1,800 young scientists selected from 425 affiliate science fairs in 78 countries, regions and territories.

In addition to the top winners, approximately 600 finalists received awards and prizes for their innovative research, including 22 “Best of Category” winners, who each received a $5,000 prize.

The Intel Foundation also awarded a $1,000 grant to each winner’s school and to the affiliated fair they represent.

On paper, architect Ignacio Rodriguez designed a gorgeous Hollywood Hills home, but the potential owner couldn’t envision how the multi-million dollar abode would look after it was built. Rather than hitting the drawing board, Rodriguez turned to his computer and built the house in virtual reality (VR) so his client could experience what it was like “living” there.

“After walking around the house in VR, the client bought it three days later,” said Rodriguez, CEO of IR Architects, speaking at the 2017 VRLA expo in Los Angeles. More than 170 companies gathered to show new uses for VR technologies.

While VR attracts attention through immersive games and entertainment, the technology is proving beneficial for a growing number of commercial uses. At VRLA, experts in real estate, retail, healthcare, education and other industries explained their experimentation with VR.

“Even though the market is being driven by gaming today, we expect commercial VR to be 50 percent of the market as soon as the next five years,” said Kumar Chinnaswamy, director of commercial VR in Intel’s Client Computing Group.

“Awareness of augmented reality (AR) and VR has significantly increased because companies see the immediate benefits the technology provides,” he said, adding that it could create new business models. “The tech can reduce product design risks, offer new ways to engage customers and enable immersive training methods.”

Goldman Sachs estimates the market for VR and AR could grow into a $128 billion market by 2025.

A New Way to Imagine Dream Homes

After closing the deal on the Hollywood Hills home, Rodriguez now demonstrates all of his property designs as VR experiences, built using Unreal Engine, a popular game development tool. Business at his L.A.-based architectural firm has been booming ever since.

Rodriguez said the benefit of designing homes in VR is that clients know in advance exactly what the home will look like. If the fireplace is in the wrong place, he said, they can simply move it.

“The feedback is amazing,” he said. “The clients get to experience the house and make changes to the design before anybody builds anything.”

Having this feedback early, instead of in the middle of construction, is crucial.

IR Architects specialize in modern homes with huge price tags, ranging from $3 million to $22 million, including Beverly Hills mansions. Rodriguez said stalling a project for revisions can quickly result in a huge loss.

The immersive technology isn’t just for the high-end real estate market. Show My Property TV, a digital agency specializing in apartment marketing, uses VR to create virtual tours of rental properties. Potential tenants can inspect living quarters from anywhere in the world.

Reinventing Retail Spaces

Even retail stores are looking to VR as a way to jazz up the shopping experience. It could help retailers blend real world and digital buying experiences as they struggle to attract and retain shoppers.

“[It’s important for] developers in the commercial space to focus on solving a business’s problems,” said Chinnaswamy.

Mark Hardy, CEO of InContext, works with many retail and restaurant chains, including Walmart and Starbucks, to help remodel and optimize shelf space.

His team goes into a store and snaps thousands of photos of the products, while measuring the store’s dimensions with laser rangefinder technology. This information helps them build an exact replica of the store. The pieces snap apart like Lego blocks, allowing retailers to freely design new layouts without the overhead costs of physically building a retail space.

VR helps design new layouts without physically building the space. Image courtesy of InContext.

Merchandisers can put on a headset and see their ideas immediately, before they roll plans out nationwide. For example, Starbucks used the VR application to find the counter arrangement that would best convey a cozy small-business atmosphere.

“Consumers are tired of shopping at stores that are distribution centers,” said Hardy. “The challenge for retailers is that they’re becoming experience centers like Apple Stores and Tesla.”

He said VR is even changing how merchandisers do marketing research. To test the quality of a new store design, for example, retailers can study the shopping behaviors of people using the VR simulation. This gives retailers the freedom to explore store layouts that break the mold.

VR in Anatomy Classrooms

If VR can engage and educate shoppers, why not use it to train future doctors? That’s what Blausen Medical does with its vast portfolio of award-winning medical animations.

Students traditionally learn about body structures from images in books, but Blausen Medical’s illustrations expand to enormous sizes that can be experienced from different angles in VR.

The app positions the VR user right in the center of the human anatomy animation. The viewer sees and feels what it’s like to be the size of an atom, as proteins and molecules tower above then undulate from side to side.

“Once you have the experience of interacting with the animation in VR, you can’t go back to the textbook,” said Bruce Blausen, the company’s CEO and founder.

Blausen’s VR imagery provides practical applications for education. According to Intel’s Chinnaswamy, “Early research has shown that students who learn in VR score more than 25 percent higher than those learning by traditional methods. Gamification of learning in VR will further change the landscape of education over the next decade.”

Blausen Medical’s first VR model captures the complexities of a human’s skeletal muscle contractions. Eventually, the company plans to convert its entire library of medical animations into VR, including tours through the inner ear, the cardiovascular system and even explorations of diseases in the body.

These VR apps will primarily be sold to universities and medical institutions, helping future doctors better understand the functions of the body.

From real estate to retail to healthcare education, the commercial uses of VR are expanding as access to the technology grows. By creating immersive experiences, industry leaders are poised to shape a future where real and digital worlds merge.

]]><p>VR entrepreneurs open doors for real estate, retail and education leaders to offer immersive, interactive digital experiences. On paper, architect Ignacio Rodriguez designed a gorgeous Hollywood Hills home, but the potential owner couldn’t envision how the multi-million dollar abode would look after it was built. Rather than hitting the drawing board, Rodriguez turned to his &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/vr-entrepreneurs-rethink-real-estate-retail-education/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/vr-entrepreneurs-rethink-real-estate-retail-education/">VR Entrepreneurs Rethink Real Estate, Retail and Education</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/vr-entrepreneurs-rethink-real-estate-retail-education/Getting Fit in Virtual Realityhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/0x23uJSUDFQ/UncategorizedVR and fitnessVicky ThompsonTue, 30 May 2017 08:28:06 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18537Both hardcore gamers and fitness enthusiasts reap the cardio benefits of working out in virtual reality.

A funny thing happened when hardcore gamers started playing games in virtual reality (VR): they broke a sweat. While jumping, hitting and dodging imaginary opponents, players inadvertently got a workout.

Exercising without intending to exercise is an unexpected but welcome benefit of VR gaming.

“VR offers the act of being put into an experience that makes you work out, as opposed to working out in an experience,” said Michael De Medeiros, chief content officer of VR Fitness Insider, and the former editor-in-chief of Men’s Fitness magazine.

Could VR be the next fitness craze to inspire Americans to get moving?

Gamers Getting Fit

VR gaming helped motivate Tim Donahey, a personal trainer and former competitive power lifter, who found himself out of shape and looking for an escape after a rough patch in his personal life.

“I got myself a Vive and I immediately experienced how much it can mobilize you — getting your heart rate up, quickening your breathing,” he said. “I thought, ‘I can cheat my way back into shape — I’ve found a shortcut into fitness.’”

Tim Donahey punched his way to weight loss using VR games. Image courtesy of Tim Donahey.

“These games are actually fairly physical,’” said Kim Pallister, director of Intel’s Virtual Reality Center of Excellence. He said the boxing game Knockout League, for example, is a killer workout.

“You’re holding these two controllers that weigh just a few ounces each,” he said. “But you get into a 20-minute boxing session of fighting a fictional opponent and you get tired.”

Donahey lost more than 14 pounds and almost 4 inches off his waist, and gained a business idea in the process. He started VR Fit at a local fitness club in Columbus, Ohio to lead people through the same VR exercise program.

He’s also formed a tech start-up, ATG Studios, to develop fitness-forward games for the HTC Vive.

“Our mission is to make gamers some of the fittest people on the planet by giving them a fully realized VR social sphere that intersects gaming, mobility, coaching and competition,” he said.

Gamification of Exercise

Donahey isn’t the only one capitalizing on VR fitness fun. Companies like VIRZoom and HoloFit have added a VR headset to traditional exercise equipment, such as exercise bikes, rowers and steppers, turning a ho-hum cardio fitness experience into a jaunt through a virtual world.

Some innovators have taken it a literal step further, creating multidirectional walk/run treadmills, such as Virtuix Omni and Infinadeck, so you’re able to stride, slide, scoot and jog your way through the games.

Icaros produces an entirely different experience, loading users facedown into a skydiving-like body position and requiring movements of the limbs (and a lot of core engagement) to “fly” in the game play.

Beyond cardio workouts, strength training is an area where people definitely need some motivation, according to former Body Building founder Ryan DeLuca.

DeLuca and his team at Black Box VR have been hard at work developing a resistance-training machine that combines VR with a cable-pulley machine. Computer-controlled tension in the handles integrate pushing and pulling actions (with realistic difficulty) into game play.

“The biggest challenge for all of us developers is to up the engagement factor,” said DeLuca. “It’s got to be social and it’s got to latch on to what makes other popular fitness experiences, like SoulCycle, fun.”

Broader Appeal

Exercising with VR can be a hard sell. VR headsets are large, heavy and don’t breathe well — although sweat-wicking covers can help — and without a demo, many people don’t understand how it works. VR costs and space requirements can be prohibitive, with equipment costs starting at $800 and up.

Fitness enthusiasts get a core workout by “flying” on the Icaros. Image courtesy of Icaros.

However, smaller, lighter and untethered headsets are on their way, according to Intel’s Pallister. Developers are experimenting with additional wearable sensors, as well as biometric readers (for heart rate and galvanic skin response) to improve the overall active experience.

Most VR exercise experiences heavily focus on cardio. Aerobic exercise is essential — a recommended 150 minutes per week — and anything that gets people off the couch is a good thing, says Pete McCall, an exercise physiologist and producer of the All About Fitness podcast.

“I think VR may be an interesting way to augment a workout or maybe engage people who otherwise might not be interested in fitness—the gamers and tech people in particular,” said exercise physiologist McCall.

Reaped Benefits

For Donahey, coming off his intensive VR workout program, he found it much easier to dive back into other real-life activities he’d previously enjoyed.

Tim Donahey tracked the cardio benefits of working out with VR games. Image courtesy of Tim Donahey.

“After my 50 days were up, I felt like Neo in The Matrix where he realizes, ‘I know Kung Fu’ — I could run five miles, swim a mile and bike 10 miles again, without having done those things,” he said. “I can’t say with certainty that I wouldn’t be here without VR, but it certainly made it seamless and fun.”

]]><p>Both hardcore gamers and fitness enthusiasts reap the cardio benefits of working out in virtual reality. A funny thing happened when hardcore gamers started playing games in virtual reality (VR): they broke a sweat. While jumping, hitting and dodging imaginary opponents, players inadvertently got a workout. Exercising without intending to exercise is an unexpected but &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/getting-fit-virtual-reality/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/getting-fit-virtual-reality/">Getting Fit in Virtual Reality</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/getting-fit-virtual-reality/Altitude Seven Helps Women Climb to New Heightshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/_UvuVdpicaM/Uncategorized#SHEOWNSITAltitude SevenGeorgina MirandaLenovo ThinkpadyogaDeb Miller LandauThu, 08 Jun 2017 09:00:11 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18382For Georgina Miranda, building a small business is like climbing a mountain — following switchbacks and taking one step at a time.

Georgina Miranda is petite and soft spoken, well dressed and an urbanite. But beneath her quiet demeanor lives a relentless, adventure-seeking beast.

Chugging oxygen from thin air, pushing through indescribable chafing and blisters from ill-fitting gear, Miranda has climbed more mountains than many of the trucker hat-wearing mountaineers hanging out at the climbing store.

“I went from someone that couldn’t run a mile, to someone that has now climbed six of the highest peaks on each continent, including Denali and Everest,” she said. “That’s proof that you can literally start from zero and work your way up.”

In 2014, fueled by her desire for the outdoors, Miranda founded Altitude Seven, an adventure lifestyle media platform for women. It is designed to help a global community of women travelers discover inspirational stories, the best gear and apparel, while creating community for adventurous women. It is committed to elevating the presence and visibility of women in adventure sports and travel media.

“I always knew I wanted my own business, I just didn’t always know what I wanted it to be,” she said. It wasn’t until she reached the top of Mt. Denali in 2010, blistered and bleeding from ill-fitting gear that the idea for Altitude Seven struck.

“I thought, there must be a better way for women,” she said, and began making gear and creating prototypes. “I was very naïve to think that was going to be enough to kickstart my way, and it wasn’t.”

She equates building a business to preparing for Everest.

The Road Less Traveled

Growing up in Los Angeles with a Nicaraguan mom and Salvadorian dad, in a family without much money, Miranda’s highest hopes were pinned on becoming the first person in her family to graduate from university.

It was a cautious household — if you fell off your bike at age five, say, your biking days were over.

“Growing up, education was my ticket to a better life, not adventure in the outdoors,” she said, adding that her first camping trip was in college.

“I was really not athletically gifted,” she said, but she loved being in the wilderness. The sense of freedom it stirred was unfamiliar and delicious. She tagged along with anyone who would let her and eventually started going for solo hikes.

While in grad school, she ventured into a climbing gym and learned the ropes, always focused on her education and following a path that had been so ingrained, so predestined that she couldn’t see another way.

“I had done everything perfectly,” she said. “I got a scholarship, a job, an MBA, another good job. I got married, bought a house.”

And then one day, at age 27, it all started to crumble.

“I looked around and thought, this isn’t the life I am meant to be living, this isn’t the life I wanted to build,” she said. “It just needed to flip and so it did. Completely.”

She divorced, lost a home in the financial crisis, and moved to Portland then San Francisco. She started working for an international consulting firm that allowed her to travel around the world and advise some of the top Fortune 500 companies.

“On this path to entrepreneurship, more than once, I’ve had to make the decision to leave something very stable,” she said. “I had to take that leap of faith and pursue something that’s much more aligned to what I feel is my purpose.”

Building a Business

The path to her small business took several twists and turns. In 2014, she transitioned from designing gear to designing an e-commerce platform that curated gear created for women. Then, she pivoted again.

Miranda evolved Altitude Seven from an “outdoors company” to a “tech company,” a multimedia lifestyle platform connecting women with advice and outdoor gear designed for women.

“I realized what was the most powerful piece was actually the stories of women going out there and doing all of these kinds of things. This is what inspires others,” she said.

She met women who wanted to paddle in Baja, to travel and learn about the world, to climb mountains, to seek more meaning in their lives. She realized other women had desires that mirrored her own, yet lacked a place with relevant stories and community.

Using the online platform she’d built, she began sharing narratives of women pushing past their fears and chasing dreams, whatever the odds.

Following the Switchback

Miranda spends much of her time in Covo, her co-working space, and on the road for meetings and events, adding stories and resources to her website using her Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga, a 2-in1 laptop and touchscreen tablet. She interacts with her community in various ways, including her Altitude Seven Instagram, where women share their stories of adventure, and her event series She Ventures.

“Technology is extremely critical to Altitude Seven,” said Miranda. “It’s embedded in everything we do and it’s how we are able to connect and engage with our community.”

She said being a female founder in industries dominated by men – outdoors and tech – has been a challenge.

“I try to see it not as a negative but as an opportunity to break trail, not just for myself, but for other people like me to do it faster, better, easier in years to come.”

Today, she is gearing up to complete the Explorers Grand Slam in the next 11 months, climbing Carstensz Pyramid in Papua New Guinea, climbing Mt. Vinson in Antarctica, and skiing the last degrees of both the North and South Poles. For Miranda, it’s another step in her journey to create a meaningful life and business.

“I think it’s just really important to know what’s calling you in life,” she said. “Sometimes it’s not a linear path, where the perfect thing shows up, but rather you have to chase that thread to see where it leads.”

Editor’s note: Georgina Miranda’s story is part of iQ’s #SHEOWNSIT series, which spotlights women small business owners and their journeys of success.

]]><p>For Georgina Miranda, building a small business is like climbing a mountain — following switchbacks and taking one step at a time. Georgina Miranda is petite and soft spoken, well dressed and an urbanite. But beneath her quiet demeanor lives a relentless, adventure-seeking beast. Chugging oxygen from thin air, pushing through indescribable chafing and blisters &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/she-owns-it-altitude-seven/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/she-owns-it-altitude-seven/">Altitude Seven Helps Women Climb to New Heights</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/she-owns-it-altitude-seven/Three Ways Artificial Intelligence is Good for Societyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/eIcmY2i8aAo/Uncategorized2017 SXSW Interactive FestivalAIAI social goodartificial intelligenceDiane BryantFarmLogsNCMECVicky ThompsonMon, 15 May 2017 14:31:21 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18318Artificial intelligence helps farmers, doctors and rescue workers make a positive impact on society.

Artificial intelligence (AI) powers many gadgets, like smartphones, smart thermostats and voice-activated virtual assistants that bring modern conveniences to daily life. Increasingly, AI is also being used to tackle critical social challenges.

AI is a branch of computer science where machines can sense, learn, reason, act and adapt to the real world, amplifying human capabilities and automating tedious or dangerous tasks.

Some experts believe AI has the potential to spark a serious social revolution.

“Artificial intelligence will drive the human race,” said India Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking this month in New Delhi about a new e-governance initiative that uses technology to create paperless offices.

“It will be debated whether there will be jobs left or not. But experts say that there is a huge possibility of job creation through AI,” said Modi, adding that the influence of AI is on the rise and has the power to transform economies.

Still, many tech innovators — including physicist Stephen Hawking, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Tesla founder Elon Musk — caution that humanity could lose control of superintelligent machines, and AI could cause more harm than good.

The evolution of a master machine race has been debated since the mid-1950s when AI research began.

“Current claims and hopes for progress in models for making computers intelligent are like the belief that someone climbing a tree is making progress toward reaching the moon,” explained Dreyfus in his book, Mind Over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer, published in 1985.

In the past three decades, attention and energy poured into AI has steadily increased. Many AI researchers agree that AI can be smart without being sentient, which gets to the heart of the fear of the new technology: the difference between intelligence and autonomy.

“In a very narrow way, these systems are ‘more intelligent’ than people, but their expertise applies to a very narrow domain, and they have very little autonomy,” Yann LeCun, Facebook’s director of AI research, told Popular Science. “They can’t really go beyond the task they were designed to perform.”

There is a growing number of AI applications actively improving people’s lives and creating positive change in the world.

At the 2017 SXSW Interactive Festival, Diane Bryant, then executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s Data Center Group, said AI can help manage the use of scarce resources, assist scientific exploration and improve inclusion and human rights around the world.

“AI will deliver societal transformation on par with the industrial, digital and information revolutions,” Bryant told the SXSW audience.

She said AI is taking off because of three key elements: cloud computing that makes computer performance and data storage easily accessible; connectivity that allows fast data transition; and Moore’s Law, which brings continuous increases in computer performance at lower cost.

Reframing Farming

One of AI’s greatest impacts could be in food production — an industry challenged by a rapidly growing world population, competition for natural resources and plateauing agricultural productivity.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that the earth’s population will balloon to 9.7 billion people on by 2050. At a time when the agricultural land available for farming is shrinking, farmers will need to grow approximately 50 percent more crops.

Enter FarmLogs, a farming management app currently used by one out of three farmers in America. FarmLogs uses data and technology to help farmers monitor fields, track the weather and get insights into soil using historical satellite imagery to calculate irregular plant growth.

“Farming has really changed forever,” said Jess Vollmar, a Michigan farmer and co-founder of FarmLogs. “The next big wave of transformation in this industry will come from data science, in applying the new information that we have in the world into agriculture and helping farmers use that to get the most out of every acre they farm.”

Real-time data analytics helps farmers maximize their crop yields and profits. Using FarmLogs’ field data analyzer, users can quickly compare the potential profits using variables such as soil type and climate zones.

Improving Cancer Diagnosis

Cancer is a frightening diagnosis, impacting 1.65 million people in the U.S. in 2015. Waiting for biopsy results can be stressful, but AI may help accelerate the diagnosis and treatment process.

The project is driven in part by prostate cancer survivor Bryce Olson, a global marketing director for Intel whose cancer went into remission after he used targeted molecular testing to create a custom treatment plan.

Known as precision medicine, this type of cancer treatment is based on the genomic sequencing of the individual’s cancer, health history, lifestyle and more.

“We found out that my cancer uses a cell-signaling pathway that the standard care wasn’t even touching,” he said. DNA data in hand, Olson found a clinical trial in Los Angeles that would be a “fit” for his unique cancer.

Using a high-performance computing system, oncologists will be able to employ AI to compare a patient’s molecular test results with a vast database of previous cases. Once a match is found, the physician can use this research to customize each patient’s treatment plan — all in one day.

“In the world of health care, artificial intelligence is still in its infancy,” reported Wired magazine. “But the idea is spreading.”

Keeping Kids Safe

Digital technology makes it easier for predators to create, access and share child sexual abuse images worldwide, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Online exploitation is rampant, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). In 2016 alone, its CyberTipline received 8.2 million reports related to abusive images, online enticement, trafficking and molestation.

While technology may have helped lead to this problem, AI may be part of the solution.

“As the volume in the pipeline continues to rise, we have to be more and more efficient,” said John Clark, CEO of NCMEC. “Clearly technology has to be front and center.”

NCMEC can scan sites for suspicious content, store massive volumes of data, run a variety of queries and share the data across the organization’s applications. And AI helps automate and speed up the process.

“We’re still in the initial phases, but results so far promise to reduce the typical 30-day turnaround time (to handle a report) to just a day or two. And for a child in a vulnerable situation, those 28 or 29 days can literally be a lifetime,” said Clark.

While fear of the negative consequences remain, AI is proving it can bring about enormous societal benefits.

“AI can really drive the betterment of humankind,” said Intel’s Bryant. “It has the potential to make a positive and lasting impact on the world.”

]]><p>Artificial intelligence helps farmers, doctors and rescue workers make a positive impact on society. Artificial intelligence (AI) powers many gadgets, like smartphones, smart thermostats and voice-activated virtual assistants that bring modern conveniences to daily life. Increasingly, AI is also being used to tackle critical social challenges. AI is a branch of computer science where machines can sense, learn, &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/artificial-intelligence-is-good-for-society/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/artificial-intelligence-is-good-for-society/">Three Ways Artificial Intelligence is Good for Society</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/artificial-intelligence-is-good-for-society/Capturing PGA Drama in True VRhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/l8cmiIX1sK8/Uncategorized17th holeDavid AufhausergolfPGASawgrassSports VRTrue VRVRDeb Miller LandauFri, 12 May 2017 12:29:39 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18281Live virtual reality makes its golf debut on the iconic 17th hole at Sawgrass.

The 17th hole at The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., is one of golf’s most notable holes – the sport’s Wrigley Field or Fenway Park. The small, quirky hole challenges and frustrates the sport’s best players, while thrilling fans.

At this year’s Players Championship, fans will have unprecedented access to the drama. The hole will be available on live 360 video and virtual reality (VR) for all four days of the tournament, brought to viewers via PGA’s partnership with Intel’s True VR technology.

Bringing the Drama to VR

It’s hard to imagine a more perfect setting for True VR’s golf debut. At just 137 yards, 17 is one of the shortest holes on the PGA Tour, but make no mistake, it’s one of the most challenging, thanks to the green, set on an island, in the middle of a large water hazard.

Intel True VR cameras are placed at the iconic 17th hole at the PGA’s PLAYERS Championship.

Intel’s True VR will capture the action with three separate rigs of a dozen cameras each, set up at key locations on 17.

At 17, no location is as key as the water surrounding the green.

“We’ll have one camera in the water,” said David Aufhauser, managing director of Intel Sports Group. “We will be able to transport fans and enable them to pick whatever angle they want to be watching, including as if they were sitting on a little boat.”

Blake Rowe, from Intel True VR, jumps in to the water at the 17th hole at the Sawgrass Open to check on the Intel True VR camera.

While fans will have the power to select their vantage points, they can also put that power in the hands of professionals.

“They’ll have the ability to consume a VR-cast—a produced broadcast where we take them from shot to shot,” said Aufhauser. “So they can choose their own angle or sit back and watch the VR-cast.”

Iconic Backdrop

The hole has been the site of some of the most dramatic moments in The Players Championship.

“It’s like having a 3 o’clock appointment for a root canal,” said former PGA star Mark Calcavecchia, who has won 13 times on the tour, but never at Sawgrass. “You’re thinking about it all morning and you feel bad all day. Sooner or later you’ve got to get to it.”

In 2001, Tiger Woods hit a 60-foot putt that wound and twisted its way across the green to drop in the hole. The incredible shot gave him a birdie, and he ended up winning Sawgrass by one stroke.

In 2007, Sean O’Hair was two shots away from the lead, but his chances of a miracle comeback were scuttled when he shot a seven on the hole.

A year later, Paul Goydos missed the island and found the water surrounding it, to lose the tournament to Sergio Garcia.

“The 17th at Sawgrass is an iconic hole that even the most casual golf fan will recognize,” said Adam Fonseca, creator of the Golf Unfiltered website and podcast. “If I were asked which hole I’d want to experience in VR for the first time, I’d be hard-pressed to name one better than the island green.”

“Every basketball court is the same,” said Aufhauser. “They’re the same size. Everything’s in the same spot. That’s not the case for golf. Every course is different. Every hole on the course is laid out differently.”

The ball is also much smaller and travels much farther, both in distance and height. Would the True VR equipment be able to track shots? To find out, the technology was given a test run back in February, at the Genesis Open.

Testing the tech during the Pro-Am at the Genesis Open at Riviera Country Club on February 15, 2017 in Pacific Palisades, California. (Photo by Stan Badz/PGA TOUR)

“It was all about how our technology worked best—which camera angle worked best, things like that,” Aufhauser said. “So we used that as a proof of concept and a learning process. And then we took all of the learning and applied it to create this experience at Sawgrass.”

Are Golf Fans Ready?

The February test convinced everyone that the technology is ready for golf, but the question of whether golf fans are ready for the technology is still up in the air.

Aufhauser is confident in the technology and the product. The only thing keeping him up at night as the tournament approaches is how it will be received.

“I want as many people to watch as possible,” he said. “The things I’ll be worried about are: How many people are watching? How are they watching it? What are they consuming? Do they like it? Are they liking the experience? What do they want?”

As with most new broadcasting technology, going all the way back to instant replay, it’s a matter of showing fans what’s now possible.

“Virtual Reality broadcasts could be the way TV events are moving,” Golf Unfiltered’s Fonseca said. “Golf is no exception. There have been many advancements in golf broadcast tech over the years, and VR seems like a logical next step. Who wouldn’t want to experience Sawgrass from the comfort of their living room? It could be a great way to introduce the atmosphere of a PGA Tour event to an entirely new audience who wouldn’t normally attend an event in person.”

]]><p>Live virtual reality makes its golf debut on the iconic 17th hole at Sawgrass. The 17th hole at The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., is one of golf’s most notable holes – the sport’s Wrigley Field or Fenway Park. The small, quirky hole challenges and frustrates the sport’s best &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/capturing-pga-drama-true-vr/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/capturing-pga-drama-true-vr/">Capturing PGA Drama in True VR</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/capturing-pga-drama-true-vr/VR Vacations: Technology Transforming Travel and Leisurehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/lVH0xaPb7Hw/UncategorizedVR tourismVR vacationsVicky ThompsonFri, 12 May 2017 13:37:45 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18266Virtual reality technology delivers a taste of the vacation experience — without the hassle of traditional travel.

Between flights, car rental, lodging and all the other expenses that pile on when taking a vacation, the increasing cost of travel is forcing many would-be travelers to choose another day at the office over the beach or theme park.

However, new technologies offer rich, immersive and interactive digital experiences and usher in a new type of tourism. Now, it’s possible to explore new worlds — without ever leaving home.

“What virtual reality vacations can do is offer us a brief escape from our increasingly hectic lifestyles, or attempt something we perhaps wouldn’t normally consider,” said Susannah DiLallo, ‎co-founder and executive producer of Rapid VR, a production company specializing in 360-degree virtual reality (VR) experiences.

“Done right, this can provide audiences with authentic, memorable and even highly emotional experiences,” she said.

Virtual vacations offer travelers many real-world benefits, without needing to pack or plan. A VR head-mounted display (HMD) is about all that’s needed to experience the sights and sounds of exotic places on this planet and beyond. VR technology can even transport people back in time to witness historical events.

Not Your Parents’ Vacation

While camping is a low-cost alternative to expensive resorts or international travel, it can quickly add up. Many of the 400-plus parks in the U.S. now charge for admission, parking and campsite reservations.

The project includes 360-degree video tours that let viewers fly over active Hawaiian volcanoes, kayak between Alaskan icebergs and swim through a Floridian shipwreck.

The increase in the costs of visiting national parks is due in large part to maintenance expenses. Dozens of bridges, roads and hiking trails are in need of repair, and virtual initiatives like Google’s can actually help preserve these national wonders.

“360 VR can also work with bodies such as the tourism industry to give audiences realistic samplings of certain adventures or experiences,” said DiLallo. “Providing the consumer with a better understanding of what they might hope to see or experience in turn drives the decision-making process.”

This ability to “test drive” a vacation before actually pulling the trigger on tickets is even more valuable for those looking to take once-in-a-lifetime trips on the other side of the world.

An Expanded World

In addition to creating unique and inexpensive travel experiences, virtual vacations open up new destination possibilities. An 80-year-old might never go to Saturn, say, but she could travel there in a digital world.

“The goal of the project is to bring together scientists and the public to imagine what it might be like to visit other planets,” said Olivia Koski, head of operations at Guerilla Science. “We use the starting point of a possible vacation, since it’s so universal.”

Now, Guerilla Science is elevating its space travel concept to the next level by crowdfunding the creation of a mobile virtual reality app.

While ITB describes itself as “a little bit like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX meet The Jetsons and Mad Men,” it leans far heavier on fact than fiction for its app landscapes, using actual NASA scientific data in the design of its virtual worlds.

Once the app is ready, intrepid explorers will be able to visit the Apollo mission landing sites on the Moon, canyons on Mars and more.

While future generations may one day be able to actually book trips to these far-off destinations, ITB’s app is as close as many will ever get.

“Most of us will never take a trip to the Moon or even to low Earth orbit, so virtual reality is the only way that most people from my generation and older will be able to experience a space vacation,” said Koski.

Traveling Through Time in Paris

Virtual travel isn’t limited to in-home experiences. Increasingly, travel destinations are using VR to bring visitors deeper into a site’s significance, both past and present.

French start-up Timescope created “the first self-service virtual reality kiosk,” where its users travel back in time. Only available in Paris, the VR telescope kiosks are located at popular sites throughout the city.

The VR telescopes feature a launch page where users can choose the year they wish to visit. When they then look through the viewer, they see an historically accurate 3D reconstruction of the exact spot where they are standing now.

Tourists in Paris can view the past through a Timescope VR kiosk. Image courtesy of Timescope.

Each recreated space was designed using archived assets, and historians ensure accuracy. The user can rotate in 360 degrees to feel as though they are truly immersed in the past, experiencing the banks of the River Seine in 1628 or the Bastille in 1416. Period-specific sounds further add to the experience.

“By peering into Timescope, viewers travel back in time, the Middle Ages for example, and can experience just how much everything has changed,” Timescope co-founder Adrian Sedaka told Frenchly. “It’s a virtual time machine.”

It’s Only the Beginning

Whether taking a trip to the Grand Canyon, the moon or the 17th century, today’s tourists have more options than ever if they want an out-of-this-world escape from everyday life.

The technology hasn’t come close to reaching its full potential, so there’s no telling where tomorrow’s VR experiences will go.

“Five years from now, you will be able to put on a VR head-mounted display and navigate your way into a first-class seat on a luxury jetliner and view all the splendor of that air travel, land in Tahiti and enjoy a walk on the beach,” predicts Rajeev Puran, a business development manager at Intel.

“You’ll feel the cool air and meet people from other places that are also in HMDs. You can talk to them, go dancing with them and so on. In five years, it will be off the charts.”

]]><p>Virtual reality technology delivers a taste of the vacation experience — without the hassle of traditional travel. Between flights, car rental, lodging and all the other expenses that pile on when taking a vacation, the increasing cost of travel is forcing many would-be travelers to choose another day at the office over the beach or theme park. &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/vr-vacations-technology-transforming-travel-and-leisure/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/vr-vacations-technology-transforming-travel-and-leisure/">VR Vacations: Technology Transforming Travel and Leisure</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/vr-vacations-technology-transforming-travel-and-leisure/Fair-Trade Fashion Fuels Brooklyn’s Bhoomki Boutiquehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/V2E0h8b907w/Uncategorized#SHEOWNSITBhoomkibusinessdiversityfashionShe owns itsmall businessSwati ArgadeDeb Miller LandauMon, 19 Jun 2017 14:13:12 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=18082Inspired by her talented mother and vibrant Indian culture, New York designer Swati Argade started a small business that brings sustainable fashions to the masses.

Like many women who grow up in a tight-knit immigrant family, Swati Argade was destined to become a doctor, lawyer or engineer. Her parents urged her to find a stable, reliable career. Everyone gets sick and pays taxes, her father said, so find a career in medicine or accounting.

But instead of following stability, Swati Argade followed her dreams.

Argade is the founder and creative director of Bhoomki, a boutique in Brooklyn dedicated to sustainable fashion. After seeing environmental and social atrocities in the apparel industry, she was determined to create a business that made a positive impact and aligned with her core values.

“When a customer leaves here with a bag full of Bhoomki merchandise, I want them to feel great about the quality product that they bought,” Argade said. “I want them to feel and look beautiful — I want them to feel proud that their purchase had a lot of attention to social and economic responsibility.”

The word Bhoomki is a loose hybrid of the Sanskrit and Hindi words for “of mother earth.” Argade sources organic, recycled and artisan fabrics with low-impact dyes.

She works with women-owned, labor compliant factories in India, where workers make living wages and are able to send their kids to school.

Running Bhoomki would be impossible without technology, said Argade, adding that she uses it in every facet of her business. She uses point-of-sale systems in the store, while inventory and financial management software tools help her plan for future collections. She creates her designs in Photoshop and Illustrator and uses CAD software to share patterns with fabric printers.

Her laptop, a Dell XPS 13 powered by an Intel Core i7 processor, lets her work from anywhere. Where she used to spend time and money taking sourcing trips to India, she can now share screens or see fabrics over Skype.

The Early Days

Agade’s first foray into fashion was creating dance costumes for the stage. Her mother runs the oldest Indian dance school in her hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina, where Argade grew up enmeshed in Indian classical dance.

But at 19, she ventured to New York City and it was there she found her calling.

“I knew that I wanted to be around more like-minded, creatively driven people,” she said. After college at the University of North Carolina, where she studied art history and business, she made her move.

“When I came up to New York I was working with the American Dance Festival, which is one of the oldest modern dance organizations in the country,” she said. “I was able to do a lot of choreography and design costumes for the stage.”

She went to graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley, where she studied film history with a focus on Bollywood musicals.

During her research, she met textile designers in India whose families had been designing textiles for centuries. They shared stories about how industrialization in the textile industry had changed the appetite for artisanal textiles.

“I completely fell in love as soon as I saw what they were doing,” she said. “I bought a bunch of bolts of textiles and started making costumes.”

She created and wore her own fashions. People would stop her and ask where they came from.

“That’s how my fashion business was born.”

Watershed Moment

“What happens when you start a business is you open one door and two more open,” said Argade. “It’s the idea that like attracts like. That’s how things opened up for me.”

Argade began wholesaling her designs around the U.S. and throughout Asia. Soon her fashions were in more than a hundred stores around the world.

She quickly became aware of atrocities occurring in the apparel industry that ran counter to the kind of business she wanted to create.

“Working in India you see a lot of poverty and you also see a lot of glamor,” she said.

She recounts the time she toured the pristine showroom of a high-end handbag factory in India.

“I asked the owner of the factory to show me where everything was made,” she said. “I walked in, and it was nothing but children making these bags for pennies.”

It was a moment of disillusionment and heartbreak for Argade.

“At that point, I knew that there was a major disconnect in what was happening in the apparel industry,” she said.

After having a child, Argade took some time to think about how to create a fashion business that would align with her values. She found a small space in Brooklyn and set to work creating a business where she could make beautiful clothing in an environmentally sustainable way, while ensuring the people who created the fabrics in India made living wages.

Having passion for your product and your process is essential in small business, Argade said, as is patience.

“I think a lot of people starting small businesses expect to be a great success overnight. But it’s really hard work,” she said, adding that hiring talented staff and working with people you can trust is essential. “It can be a slow climb, but as long as you’re moving forward, that’s what matters.”

She also said that it takes time learning what you need from a technology perspective. She said having the tech pieces in place lets her spend more time with her family and serve the “Bhoomki Believers” — her loyal customers who value both the high-quality clothing, but also the knowledge that the garments have been made ethically with the highest possible regard for the planet and its people.

Argade credits her parents for instilling strong values of hard work and doing something you believe in. She said she learned anything was possible from her mother, who owned a small business, raised four kids and managed the home.

“To see that someone can handle all of those things with so much grace is a constant inspiration,” Argade said.

Editor’s note: Swati Argade’s story is part of iQ’s #SHEOWNSIT series, which spotlights women small business owners and their journeys of success.

]]><p>Inspired by her talented mother and vibrant Indian culture, New York designer Swati Argade started a small business that brings sustainable fashions to the masses. Like many women who grow up in a tight-knit immigrant family, Swati Argade was destined to become a doctor, lawyer or engineer. Her parents urged her to find a stable, &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/she-owns-it-bhoomki-boutique/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/she-owns-it-bhoomki-boutique/">Fair-Trade Fashion Fuels Brooklyn&#8217;s Bhoomki Boutique</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/she-owns-it-bhoomki-boutique/Athletes and Fans Brace for Big Esports Competition in Australiahttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/-0HqBMdT4F0/UncategorizedAustraliaAustralia eSportseSportsesports economygamingIEMIEM AustraliaIntel Extreme MastersKen Kaplan, Intel iQ Managing EditorWed, 17 May 2017 11:16:35 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17969Intel Extreme Masters Sydney gaming competition intensifies Australia’s role in the rising esports economy.

For a year, Chris Orfanellis lived with his Australian teammates in the Downtown Grand, a low-key hotel and hotspot for esports competitions in the heart of Las Vegas. They played Counter-Strike almost daily, removing the furniture from their suite to make room for big gaming computers.

“I don’t think Las Vegas hotels are meant for staying in longer than two or three days,” said Orfanellis, who manages Renegades, a Counter-Strike team composed of Australian expatriates. “It’s hard to grasp how bad it can get.”

The fledgling Aussie esports scene drives many Australian players abroad to find success as professional gamers. That could change after the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) competition comes to Sydney on May 6-7.

IEM is the longest running global pro gaming tour in the world. Started in 2006 by ESL, the competition features Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), StarCraft II and League of Legends tournaments across multiple continents.

This is the first time IEM will be hosted in Sydney. Some 12,000 fans are expected to attend, which would make it the single largest electronic sporting event ever held in Australia. Aussie players on teams like Orfanellis’ Renegades will compete at home for $200,000 USD in cash prizes.

Fans greeted players from SK Gaming and Faze Clan as they entered the stage to play in the finals. Photo credit: Helena Kristiansson.

The event could be a catalyst for esports in Australia much in the same way professional hockey took off in the U.S. after the “miracle on ice” U.S. win over Russia at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. The big win boosted the number of U.S. players in the National Hockey League by 50 percent. A strong showing by the home teams at IEM Sydney could have a similar infectious effect, inspiring young Aussie players to follow their dreams.

Similar booms have happened around past esports events. For example, before IEM held its first tournament in Poland in 2013, many fans couldn’t even pronounce Katowice.

“We want to grow IEM Sydney organically, like Katowice, into one of the biggest esports event in the world,” said George Woo, esports manager at Intel.

According to Newzoo’s 2017 Global Esports Market Report, the esports economy is poised to reach $696 million this year and will grow to $1.5 billion by 2020. Feeding that economy is a rising wave of brand sponsorship, advertisement and media rights deals. Spending on event tickets and merchandise is expected to reach $64 million. By hosting IEM Sydney, Australia is taking a big step into the growing esports economy.

Going Pro

For local players who dream of making it to the top, the arrival of IEM is a golden opportunity, giving them the chance to square off against the world’s top talent on their home turf in front of hometown fans.

“This event will give us a lot of exposure, and help us to make this a career,” said Liam Schembri of Chiefs Esports Club, a local Australian team who qualified for the tournament.

“For everyone on the team, it’s our dream to make this a job and play overseas around the globe.”

Chiefs Esports Club won an important round during the group stage of IEM Sydney. Photo credit: Helena Kristiansson.

Renegades know firsthand the challenges ahead for amateur Australian gamers who want to go pro. Unlike top teams from other regions, good teams in Australia rarely get paid to play. The ones that do make money often don’t earn a living wage.

Before signing the contract that sent them to the U.S., members of Renegades juggled full-time jobs with school work while trying to keep pace with foreign teams who practiced for eight to nine hours a day.

“Everyone agreed that if we had time to practice like the European and North American pros, we could compete,” Orfanellis said.

“There’s just not enough opportunities in Australia for people to really go after it hard.”

Part of the problem is that Australian teams are out there on an island, literally. Australia is located far away from premier Counter-Strike destinations like Poland and Cologne, and without sponsorship, the teams have to pay around $900 USD per person out of pocket for round trip airfare. That’s simply not a viable proposition when they are likely to be matched against the top seed in the first round and sent packing home early.

Aussie Guerrilla Warfare

Analysts aren’t predicting the Australian teams to win big at IEM Sydney, but that’s not dissuading local amateurs and fans from fully embracing the event because upsets can never be ruled out. Teams like Chiefs Esports Club, who will play against Astralis, think they have a shot at winning against the reigning world champs from Denmark.

“We’re going to shake them,” said Alistair Johnston, who plays the position of rifler on Chiefs Esports Club. “I think we can do a lot of damage against them.”

Since playing their way into the tournament by winning the qualifier, Johnston’s team has dialed in completely, holding daylong bootcamps. They study film of their opponents during the day and play nightly scrimmages, just like pro teams.

Johnston will face off against Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz, one of the best Counter-Strike players in the world. During practice, Johnston has been studying the play style of his rival. In this case, the team sees anonymity as a virtue, as with guerrilla warfare.

“We know how they play, but they don’t know how we play,” said Johnston.

Unlike before, the team feels like they have an advantage going into a match. The rest of the world may not know who they are, but the cheers of 12,000 Aussies will give them an edge.

Editor’s note: Brazilian team SK Gaming won the inaugural IEM Sydney champion title, edging out seven teams from around the world. More than 7,000 fans attended the live event each day and 8 million unique viewers tuned in to the online broadcast, which was delivered in 22 different languages.

]]><p>Intel Extreme Masters Sydney gaming competition intensifies Australia&#8217;s role in the rising esports economy. For a year, Chris Orfanellis lived with his Australian teammates in the Downtown Grand, a low-key hotel and hotspot for esports competitions in the heart of Las Vegas. They played Counter-Strike almost daily, removing the furniture from their suite to make &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/athletes-and-fans-brace-for-big-esports-competition-in-australia/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/athletes-and-fans-brace-for-big-esports-competition-in-australia/">Athletes and Fans Brace for Big Esports Competition in Australia</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/athletes-and-fans-brace-for-big-esports-competition-in-australia/Top Five Most Impressive Game Explosionshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/Yw_PfFp8GAM/Uncategorizedimpressive game explosionsJust Cause 3Sniper EliteWorld of TanksVicky ThompsonWed, 17 May 2017 14:10:16 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17914From Just Cause 3 to World of Tanks, video game designers push the tech behind game explosions to their fiery limit.

In the opening moments of Just Cause 3, an innocent looking gas tank tumbles down a hill and winds up blowing up an entire city.

Creating impressive fiery blasts can be a challenge for any development team. Great explosions that capture the player’s imagination tend to put a strain on the system’s resources, and the team must carefully manage visual effects and physics of a blast to achieve ultimate destruction.

There is an art to simulating perfect chaos, and games like Just Cause 3, World of Tanks and Sniper Elite 4 have mastered the darkness. These games enlist some seriously impressive technology and design techniques for the sheer joy of blowing stuff up.

Just Cause 3 began as a parody of over-the-top action movies. Image courtesy of Square Enix.

1. Just Cause 3’s Playground of Chaos

The Just Cause franchise began as a parody of action movies that “jump the shark.” Three games later, even high-octane film director Michael Bay would be hard-pressed to top its endless explosions. The series is beloved as a playground of anarchy and chaos, where a single bullet can set off incredible chain reactions, causing entire facilities to erupt.

Game creators guide this chaos, but never want to put a limit on the player’s control.

“It is impossible for us to predict every possible scenario that can play out,” said Christofer Sundberg, chief creative officer at Avalanche Studios. And nor do they want to.

Much of Just Cause 3’s mayhem stems from a design philosophy known as emergent gameplay, where the developers create simple rules that govern a world. But then, the player is let loose without restraint, resulting in unexpected bouts of destruction.

“Everything from AI to physics simulation has a certain degree of dynamics [in Just Cause],” said Johan Fläckman, the studio’s vice president of technology.

This means the game’s explosions are able to respond to player interaction more than usual, so things often get out of control. Fläckman said he’s constantly amazed by the unintentional havoc their creative fans wreak on their world.

Following the emergent gameplay philosophy, Just Cause 3 players are free to create havoc. Image courtesy of Square Enix.

2. Strategic Bombing of Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak

In Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, the player is given the keys to a massive, futuristic army and sent off to battle on a warring planet. During the game’s development cycle, the need for many different types of explosions arose quickly. The team created more than 210 unique explosion effects to account for all the diverse ways that military units can blow up, from electrical explosions to mushroom clouds of black smoke.

“We felt that explosions were a really important part of making exciting vehicle combat,” said Steve Mumford, senior VFX artist at Blackbird Interactive.

As a result, at any given time half the map is lit up with firefights. However, the mayhem comes at a cost to CPU performance. During intense moments, the game’s frame rate can dip, slowing the speed of battle. To find a solution, the programmers created visual tools that determined which explosions were hogging the resources and took them down a notch.

Ever since developers added destructible environments to World of Tanks, no building has been safe. In previous versions of the game, houses simply turned into a pile of rubble and dust when hit with a projectile. Now, they explode with finesse. Pieces of brick and debris go flying and cause damage to surrounding objects. The second story of a building will collapse when the ground floor is taken out.

Instead of relying on better graphics to make bigger, flashier explosions, the team used physics calculations to create eruptions that pack a punch.

According to Josh Bancroft, a community manager of developer engagement at Intel, realistic destruction falls squarely in the CPU’s wheelhouse.

“Do you want to see the pieces rip apart, and be able to follow all the pieces as they explode?” he said. “To have that level of reality and immersion, you need to have more CPU performance.”

Sniper Elite 4 offers a precise anatomical breakdown of an explosion’s effect on a virtual avatar. Not only are enemies sent flying through the air by the blasts according to the laws of physics, but the enemies also have a realistic skeleton and organ systems. The game even models the effects of shrapnel tearing through a battlefield.

In the future, the development team hopes to push the tech even further.

“[I’d like to have] skeletons dynamically shattering with real-time physics simulations,” said Oliver Cullen, senior VFX artist at Rebellion. “Getting organs to wobble and tear with every possible scenario would also be interesting.”

Of course, these kinds of calculations would require an excessive amount of processing power.

For now, the CPU already has its hands full rendering the physics of large scale destruction of bridges and radar dishes in the environment.

While physics are important, explosions also need to sound mighty. To make sure that Halo Wars 2’s explosions were as authentic as possible, the U.K. based studio Creative Assembly traveled to the U.S., where they were allowed to record the sound of flamethrowers and also run over cars with a tank.

“We worked with 343 Industries studio to capture the sounds of weapons and explosions: M40 rifles, a Barrett M82 rifle, .50 caliber weapons you can’t get ahold of in the U.K.,” James Magee, the game’s audio designer, said in the Microsoft News Center.

The live explosions and real-life gunfire serve as a counterpoint to the game’s soundtrack, which was recorded with an 80-piece symphonic orchestra and, as usual with games in the Halo franchise, a large choir.

With destructible environments, real time physics calculations and intense graphical effects, video game explosions are built to impress — but the best is yet to come. As technology progresses and processors become faster, games will rocket into the sky like never before.

]]><p>From Just Cause 3 to World of Tanks, video game designers push the tech behind game explosions to their fiery limit. In the opening moments of Just Cause 3, an innocent looking gas tank tumbles down a hill and winds up blowing up an entire city. Creating impressive fiery blasts can be a challenge for any &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/top-five-most-impressive-game-explosions/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/top-five-most-impressive-game-explosions/">Top Five Most Impressive Game Explosions</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/top-five-most-impressive-game-explosions/Fast-Charging Glass Batteries Last Longerhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/xAT8KMW49TE/UncategorizedbatteriesJohn Goodenoughlithium-glass batterylithium-ion batteryVicky ThompsonWed, 17 May 2017 14:06:09 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17888New rechargeable lithium-glass batteries charge in minutes and last longer, tripling the range electric cars can travel.

While some technology advances blaze ahead, others innovations like batteries languish in a sea of good enough. The lithium-ion battery technology used in today’s laptops, drones and electric cars, for example, dates back to the mid-1980s.

But thanks to 94-year-old John Goodenough and his team of engineers, the wait for a next-gen power cell may soon be over.

“We believe our discovery solves many of the problems that are inherent in today’s batteries,” said Goodenough, a Cockrell School of Engineering professor and something of a legend in battery research.

He is the co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery and, through his pioneering work, he created the popular rechargeable battery now commonly used in consumer electronics and electric vehicles.

Now Goodenough and his team of engineers at the University of Texas at Austin have developed the first lithium-glass battery. These entirely solid cells could lead to safer, faster-charging, longer-lasting rechargeable batteries for handheld mobile devices and electric cars.

John Goodenough, creator of the lithium-ion battery, evolved the technology with the introduction of the lithium-glass battery. Image courtesy of University of Texas at Austin.

Lithium-glass not only triples the energy density of lithium-ion, it also recharges in minutes, withstands thousands of charging cycles, performs well in subzero degree weather, and won’t catch fire like lithium-ion batteries.

The researchers demonstrated that the new lithium-glass battery cells have at least three times as much energy density as lithium-ion batteries. Higher cell energy density means that electric vehicles can drive more miles between charges.

Tripling an electric vehicle’s range from what it is now would put it in the realm of gasoline-powered cars, which could help this growing earth-friendly market take off.

“I think we have the possibility of doing what we’ve been trying to do for the last 20 years,” said Goodenough in IEEE Spectrum. “That is, to get an electric car that will be competitive in cost and convenience with the internal combustion engine.”

The lithium-glass battery formulation also allows for a greater number of charging and discharging cycles, which equates to longer-lasting batteries, as well as a faster recharging time (minutes rather than hours). For mobile phone users, it may mean less time spent tethered to a wall outlet.

Lithium-glass batteries charge faster and allow electric cars to drive three times farther.

Key to the new battery cell is the use of solid glass electrolytes instead of liquid electrolytes, which are common in rechargeable batteries. Liquid electrolytes transport lithium ions between the anode (the negative side of the battery) and the cathode (the positive side of the battery), which conducts electricity. If a liquid battery cell is charged too quickly, it can short circuit and cause fires. Glass electrolytes have a low risk of short circuiting, making it a safer option.

Glass electrolytes also use sustainable materials, allowing “for the substitution of low-cost sodium for lithium. Sodium is extracted from seawater that is widely available,” making it an eco-friendly battery option, said co-researcher Maria Helena Braga, a Cockrell School senior research fellow.

While alternatives have been teased (such as hydrogen and lithium-sulfur), lithium-ion and lithium-polymer remain the go-to technologies for use in laptops, smartphones and, increasingly, electric cars.

The research is promising, but it may be a few years before the new technology is introduced to the commercial marketplace.

]]><p>New rechargeable lithium-glass batteries charge in minutes and last longer, tripling the range electric cars can travel. While some technology advances blaze ahead, others innovations like batteries languish in a sea of good enough. The lithium-ion battery technology used in today’s laptops, drones and electric cars, for example, dates back to the mid-1980s. But thanks to 94-year-old &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/fast-charging-glass-batteries-last-longer/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/fast-charging-glass-batteries-last-longer/">Fast-Charging Glass Batteries Last Longer</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/fast-charging-glass-batteries-last-longer/Ready for Anything: Disaster and Analyticshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/34J_r9_1A_k/Uncategorizeddata analyticsdisaster analyticsIOMVicky ThompsonFri, 28 Apr 2017 09:11:27 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17862Using data analytics, a humanitarian organization determines the most efficient ways to deliver aid to people affected by violence and natural disasters.

Outbreaks of violence are often unpredictable, creating extreme challenges for humanitarian aid organizations in providing safe shelter, food, water and medical care. That’s where analytics can help in predicting resources needed for people displaced by disasters.

Since 1951, the International Organization on Migration (IOM) has advocated for the well-being and dignity of migrants affected by violence and natural disasters. Today, the organization uses data analytics to determine the most efficient way to deliver resources to people in need.

The IOM works on the frontlines when worldwide humanitarian crises hit. For example, the Boko Haram conflict affecting the Lake Chad Basin area, particularly in northeast Nigeria, spawned large scale displacement and a significant humanitarian crisis.

According to the IOM, in Nigeria alone, more than 2.2 million people have been forced to flee their homes, and many are now living in temporary sites without basic services.

“When people are displaced, our ability to locate them and assess their needs is often limited,” said Nuno Nunes, a coordinator based at the IOM’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

Outbreaks of violence and natural disasters are hard to predict and dangerous, said Nunes, which makes delivering the right aid to the right places a challenge.

Today Nunes and his team collect data from hundreds of groups and thousands of individuals affected by disaster. They analyze past and present data — descriptive analytics — to understand how many people are on the move, where they are headed and what aid they need most.

In the future, Nunes says the goal is to go beyond descriptive to predictive analytics, which will help the IOM more reliably anticipate humanitarian aid logistics, such as the routes migrating populations will travel. The organization will then be able to deliver aid even more quickly, accurately and efficiently.

“Predicting what’s happening now, but inferring what you can’t directly measure can be extremely valuable,” said Bob Rogers, chief data scientist of analytics and artificial intelligence at Intel. “We’re always trying to extrapolate between what we can measure and what we need to know — both now and in the future.”

Swimming in Data

Analytics of any sort starts with data.

The IOM started in the early 1950s to help refugees displaced after World War II. The organization’s access to data has grown dramatically over the past decade, but it’s been a challenge to manage disjointed data systems.

Nunes said East Timor is a good illustration. In 2002, the Southeast Asian island nation gained United Nations status and, for several years, the construction of new infrastructure brought the population hope. When violent conflict erupted in 2006, however, many people were driven from their homes.

Nunes helped manage camps for displaced citizens. At that time, aid workers used registration systems to track the movement of individuals and the size of each relocation camp. The data helped track where to locate camps and supplies, but Nunes recognized the need for a global system that could better manage data collected from many different sources.

“Since 2010, together with a network of colleagues in emergency operations, we managed to further develop systems for tracking mobility, displacement and assistance needs, with a global footprint,” he said.

Today the IOM conducts regular, large-scale surveys in more than 30 crisis-affected countries, with approximately 2,700 census-taking organizations (including humanitarian and government partners) collecting data.

IOM uses a database to track the movement of migrants worldwide, including South Sudan. Image courtesy of IOM.

This data helps analysts understand the situation on the ground in each camp location. However, the impact goes beyond tracking people, food and water supplies. For example, analytics can help catch outbreaks of malaria or polio more quickly, identify where to find the necessary medical supplies and send those supplies along the safest route.

Migration is an inherently complex problem, and with so many data points, countries and sources to collate, the IOM has a lot of data to analyze. Even as technology advances, human analysts continue to play an indispensable role.

The Path to Prediction

While the IOM’s analytics already help save lives today, Nunes and his team have set their sights on predictive analytics to deliver even more value tomorrow.

For the IOM, predictive analytics means accurately anticipating needs before they arise — for example, imagine correctly pre-empting a malaria outbreak before the first case is diagnosed.

“The way you model different diseases and how they spread, and the way people connect within an affected community actually profoundly influences what your strategy is for stopping the outbreak,” said Intel’s Rogers.

Rogers explained how predictive analytics looks at the connector points among data. In the case of the spread of disease, analytics can measure how the infected population connects and interacts with others in the community. Using this data, disease prevention strategies may include inoculation or isolating infected communities, he said.

In addition to delivering aid directly, the IOM helps set national and international policies around migrant populations. More evidence and more accurate foresight leads to better policy recommendations, and less reactive decision-making.

Nunes and his team are using the data to build statistical models for both disaster impact and migration routes. By understanding both, the IOM is better able to anticipate where camps and supplies should be located in order to best meet migrant populations’ needs.

“There will never be 100 percent accurate prediction; emergency contexts are volatile and dynamic by nature, and no model can fully account for all variables,” he said. But being able to look at probabilities with confidence makes the IOM’s work more efficient.

Still, achieving truly predictive analytics will demand even more data and more real-time analysis tools.

“When you can go back over and re-analyze natural data with your new capabilities, you find all kinds of incredible information,” said Rogers.

The IOM continues to broaden its toolset for collecting and analyzing data, including open-source tools for mobile data collection using phones and tablets, satellite imagery for a broad overview of affected areas, and drones for a more detailed view of disaster impact and damages. IoT sensors also could play an increased role in capturing reliable data along common migratory routes.

Data capture through mobile devices will continue to grow with the introduction of IOM’s MigApp, which migrants can download for free to access emergency alerts, health information and services to assist during their migration crisis. In turn, IOM will capture the data to analyze global, regional and local migration patterns and trends.

The more information it has to analyze, Nunes said, the more IOM will be able to move to “real identification of problems and definition of new solutions, not only justifying the ones that already exist.”

]]><p>Using data analytics, a humanitarian organization determines the most efficient ways to deliver aid to people affected by violence and natural disasters. Outbreaks of violence are often unpredictable, creating extreme challenges for humanitarian aid organizations in providing safe shelter, food, water and medical care. That&#8217;s where analytics can help in predicting resources needed for people &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/ready-anything-disaster-analytics/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/ready-anything-disaster-analytics/">Ready for Anything: Disaster and Analytics</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/ready-anything-disaster-analytics/Photographers Travel Earth to Save Sky from Light Pollutionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/WSdaHjm-8UU/UncategorizedEarth DayLight PollutionNight SkyphotographySkyGlowKen Kaplan, Intel iQ Managing EditorFri, 21 Apr 2017 15:55:51 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17737Timelapse photographers zigzagged 150,000 miles across the U.S. to capture the wonders of the dark skies and raise awareness about the growing threat of light pollution.

Their family and friends think they’re crazy for devoting so many nights to create Skyglow, a book and video born from Gavin Heffernan and Harun Mehmedinovic’s passion for nature and photography. Just how Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking brought deeper understanding of the cosmos, Heffernan and Mehmedinovic are raising awareness about the damage caused by ever increasing light pollution. Their magical timelapse photography just might do the trick.

Light pollution, also known as skyglow, may not appear to be the most urgent problem facing the planet, but according to Heffernan, Mehmedinovic and others in the dark sky movement, it may be the most indicative of humanity’s growing separation from nature.

Driven by data warning that 80 percent of the world dwells below light-polluted skies — some scientists say it’s causing profound biological damage to many living things on Earth — the two photographers devoted three years of their lives to the Skyglow project. A successful Kickstarter campaign in 2015 helped them raise enough funds to travel 150,000 miles across the U.S., exploring remote and exotic locations under dark skies.

They traveled from the deserts of Arizona to the heights of Hawaii and dozens of places between and beyond. They captured 3 million images of starry night skies, driven by the fear that the twinkling constellations and swirling arms of the Milky Way could soon disappear from view, obfuscated by intensifying electrical light emanating from Earth.

“We lived on very little sleep, lots of energy drinks and some frustrations along the way, but the magic of these locations always made each trip worthwhile,” said Heffernan, describing his nocturnal travels with Mehmedinovic.

Skyglow is filled with memorizing images of the night sky and majestic starscapes. The accompanying video displays explosive, spinning and cascading light shows. Heffernan said their work is intended to inspire “ecological accountability” in the same way Earth Day brings attention to issues of sustainability.

“Whether you believe in global warming or not, hopefully we can at least all agree we need to be accountable for our actions and impact as a species or we’ll inevitably become extinct,” Heffernan said. “With light pollution, Harun and I understand that there are far more pressing crises facing the world every day, but we believe light pollution is indicative and emblematic of the greater issue of accountability. If we can scale back to what we need versus what we crave, it’s a step in the right direction.”

The two photographers first learned about light pollution while capturing long-exposure night sky timelapse images in 2012. Because the camera exposure lasts for 25-30 seconds to capture the stars and galaxies overhead, the glare of cities even hundreds of miles away soon became impossible to ignore.

“We kept having to trek further and further to find dark skies,” said Heffernan. “Out of that basic obstacle, we started thinking about light pollution, quickly learning it was causing great ecological damage. Beyond the scientific questions, we also became fascinated with the psychological impacts of living under a starless sky.”

Disappearing Dark Skies

Heffernan has lived in cities most of his life, including London, Toronto and Los Angeles.

“Only when I got back out under amazing night skies did I realize something intangible had been missing from my psyche,” he said. “The more we spoke with other people on our travels, the more we realized how universal this feeling of loss was.”

The two photographers were blown away by the breadth of the impact of light pollution on the circadian clock of living organisms. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the consequences range from the disruption of seasonal cycles of plants and the breeding cycles of animals to potentially causing depression, insomnia, cardiovascular disease and cancer in people.

“What was most striking to me was how bad things have gotten so fast,” said Heffernan. “When you look at the North American maps over the last 50 years and the projections, it’s devastating. The International Dark Sky Association estimates that 80 percent of North America can’t see the Milky Way — and the numbers are much worse in Europe and other developed nations.”

Heffernan said one of the most incredible dark sky locations to visit is the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii.

“Our Skyglow journey took us all across the continent to some of the most incredible dark sky locations, but the sky quality here [in Hawaii] at 14,000 feet was probably some of best we’ve ever seen,” he said.

Heffernan and Mehmedinovic rely on a half dozen Canon 5D Mark III and 6D cameras, a collection of lenses with aperture f2.8 or faster and few remote control intervalometers, which count intervals of time for each camera. They bring sturdy tripods and occasionally use Alpine Labs’ Michron and Radian, which allow for 360-degree turn of the camera while shooting. They use timelapse devices and a motorized dolly for more advanced moving shots. The Sky Guide iPhone app allows them to preview celestial timing and Milky Way positioning. The Radarnow! Weather Radar app provides precise Doppler readings.

“Advancement of DSLR sensors enabled us to take the sort of photos that would’ve required a million dollar camera 20 years ago,” said Mehmedinovic. “Also the advancement of computer processing and data storage technologies allow us to work with RAW footage at pretty amazing speeds.”

With the help of digital technologies and love for Mother Earth, Heffernan and Mehmedinovic promise to keep fighting to stop the destruction of the planet’s dark skies by raising awareness about light pollution.

“I am seeing more awareness now than ever, but we are still long way from reversing the train to oblivion,” said Mehmedinovic. “Light pollution affects 80 percent of humanity but still only one percent are reported to know what it is.”

For all of the family members and friends who worried every time the two photographers went chasing night skies, Mehmedinovic said they were relieved to see the project finish.

“They fully embraced the importance of the project, and perhaps trust that I won’t disappear in the dark.”

]]><p>Timelapse photographers zigzagged 150,000 miles across the U.S. to capture the wonders of the dark skies and raise awareness about the growing threat of light pollution. Their family and friends think they&#8217;re crazy for devoting so many nights to create Skyglow, a book and video born from Gavin Heffernan and Harun Mehmedinovic’s passion for nature &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/photographers-travel-earth-save-sky-light-pollution/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/photographers-travel-earth-save-sky-light-pollution/">Photographers Travel Earth to Save Sky from Light Pollution</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/photographers-travel-earth-save-sky-light-pollution/Coachella Drone Light Show Delights Concert Crowdhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/K6pnPKCtHnc/UncategorizedCoachelladrone light showdronesIntel Shooting Star dronesMusic FestivalKen Kaplan, Intel iQ Managing EditorThu, 04 May 2017 12:10:10 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17746The 2017 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival took fans into the future when 300 synchronized Shooting Star drones illuminated the night sky above center stage.

A crowd of more than 100,000 Coachella concertgoers saw history in the making when 300 Intel Shooting Star drones colored the night sky. The dancing drones took the shape of a ferris wheel, then a rotating windmill, palm trees and other colorful 3D animated objects.

Social media lit up with comments like “OMG they were drones” and “So we weren’t hallucinating!”

YouTuber JoanJetsetter wrote, “Insane surprise drone show at Coachella! Yes, the robots are here, and they are coming for us.”

Presented by HP, the Intel-powered drone light show first appeared at Coachella after indie pop band The xx finished its set, just before Radiohead took the stage. The drones flew again behind the main stage before Lady Gaga’s performance on Saturday.

“Coachella is two weekends full of different kinds of music, abstract art and the latest technology, making it the perfect event for drone light shows,” said Natalie Cheung, general manager of Intel drone light shows.

Intel designed the drones, animation and music, and worked with festival director Bill Fold and Golden Voice to prepare for the two weekends of Coachella. The new technology demonstration at Coachella was historic because it was the largest audience to witness a live performance of the Intel drone light show so far.

Like a swarm of synchronized fireflies, the Intel Shooting Star drones flash a wide variety of colors and brightness. The Intel drone technology was featured during Lady Gaga’s NFL Super Bowl halftime performance.

Drone Entertainment Takes Off

Since their debut in Germany in late 2015, the Intel drone lights shows have set two Guinness Book of World Record titles for the Most Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) airborne simultaneously: 100 then 500.

Nearly a year prior to the Coachella performance, the Intel drone light show flew over the neighboring desert city of Indio. It was the first time Intel was permitted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly 100 drones synchronously in U.S. airspace. It showed that safety regulations can allow for the use of multiple drones to entertain public audiences.

The FAA has authority over the use of airspace and categorizes Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) or drones as actual aircraft. As a result, drone pilots must follow FAA airspace regulations just like any other aircraft pilot. A different subset of rules govern commercial use of drones, called Part 107, a waiver obtained by the Intel team.

“Based on several factors and proven safety mitigations we have in place, we are allowed to fly up to 400 feet above ground level, fly multiple drones per pilot and fly at night,” said Intel Shooting Star fleet pilot Clay Coleman.

To ensure safety, Coleman said he communicates regularly with the FAA, local law enforcement aviation units, and the local flying community. He said another key to managing safety is the drone system’s customizable, multi-layer geo-fence technology that automates where exactly each drone can and cannot fly.

Sparkling Skies

Coachella planners worked with Intel to integrate the drone light show into the festival schedule. Test flghts at Indio helped the planning process but the team still faced last-minute challenges, including high winds. But, according to software engineer Tobi Gurdan, each time the drones perform, the team learns and improves.

“We came a long way since the Super Bowl show because our algorithms are more powerful and easy to use,” said Gurdan.

“At Coachella, the whole show is synchronized to music by the beat, and we included exploding spheres in sparkling colors. But rather than the lights fading out, they come to a halt and suddenly implode back again. Fireworks certainly can’t do that.”

One of the fascinating aspects of these lightshows is the perception of size and depth, said Gurdan.

“We designed geometric shapes like a 3D pyramid and a floating volumetric waveform,” he said. “The depth is emphasized by moving and rotating lights, giving the audience a reinforced sense of perspective.”

Intel Shooting Star drones each weigh about 280 grams or less than 10 ounces. They’re made of flexible plastic and foam, with no screws, and the propellers are covered by protective cages. Each drone is equipped with built-in LED lights that can create over 4 billion color combinations. The system can be done by a single operator controlling hundreds of drones.

For anyone needing a taxi this summer in Dubai, things are looking up. If all goes as planned, the jet-setting city will offer the world’s first autonomous air taxi service.

Combining autonomous driving (AD) and drone technology, the Ehang 184 passenger drone is an autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV) capable of carrying a person weighing less than 220 pounds. With plans to deploy in summer 2017, the AAV is part of Dubai’s smart mobility solutions for reducing traffic congestion.

After passengers step inside, they select a destination listed on a touchscreen device nestled near the seat. The vehicle automatically starts, lifts off and cruises to the set destination then lands smoothly. A ground-based center monitors and controls the entire operation.

Featuring eight propellers, the mega drone reportedly flies for up to 25 minutes at top speeds of 37 mph and reaches a cruising height of 11,500 feet.

According to the Chinese-based manufacturer Ehang, the passenger drone has made more than 200-plus successful (non-crashing) test flights.

This ambitious autonomous public transportation service is just one of many projects that are one step closer to the dream of a flying car.

But it’s not the only passenger drone poised to revolutionize urban airways. Airbus is planning its own autonomous Vahana flyer. German-based e-volo has been testing its Volocopter and says it’s close to receiving certification to fly in 2018. There are other multi-rotor passenger drone designs from Zee Aero and Joby Aviation.

Just how trains and automobiles changed transportation, passenger drones could shape the future of transportation and play a critical role in the evolution of smart cities. By no means has innovation in automobiles and railways come to a halt. Elon Musk’s SpaceX Hyperloop competition has captured the imagination for anyone who love trains. Earlier this year, three university teams (Delft University, MIT and Technical University of Munich) tested their prototype pods on a mile-long, vacuum-sealed SpaceX Hyperloop track.

The SpaceX Hyperloop may or may not evolve into a real transportation technology, but nonetheless it’s inspiring ideas that may completely change what exists today.

This creative spirit may well lead to a future filled with space elevators and teleportation, but for now, jet packs, hoverbikes and flying taxis are well within reach.

While the Hyperloop promises more speed (up to 760 mph), the Dubai passenger drone aims to lift the problems of traffic into the air, which will require a new set of air traffic regulations. If these experiments point to anything, it’s that human ingenuity is earnest about creating better, more efficient ways to travel.

]]><p>Rapid innovation in drone technologies could relieve commuter traffic in smart cities as passenger drone services become available. For anyone needing a taxi this summer in Dubai, things are looking up. If all goes as planned, the jet-setting city will offer the world&#8217;s first autonomous air taxi service. Combining autonomous driving (AD) and drone technology, the Ehang &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/will-dubai-offer-first-passenger-drone-for-public-transportation/">Continued</a></p>
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https://iq.intel.com/will-dubai-offer-first-passenger-drone-for-public-transportation/Will Retail Robots Upgrade Shopping Experiences?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/b4O0hR7Mym4/UncategorizedAmazon Goretailretail robotsretail tech trendsRetail TechnologyrobotsSimbe Robotics TallyVicky ThompsonWed, 19 Apr 2017 08:53:19 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17524With the ability to manage inventory in real-time, take payment for items almost anywhere inside a store and even prepare tasty drinks, retail robots could be the next best way to keep customers returning to brick and mortar stores.

Home robots were a big hit at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but chances are that the first robot encounter for most people will be inside a store. Much like other industries, retail is being shaped by robots and algorithms. If things go as planned, these high-tech innovations could be the key to bringing customers back into physical stores.

Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics have the potential to free up retail staff, increase business efficiency and improve the shopping experience by leveraging massive amounts of real-time data.

In Seattle, Amazon is changing the physical shopping experience by experimenting with smart shelving and checkout-free shopping at an Amazon Go grocery store located not too far from the Space Needle. Shoppers scan the Amazon Go app on their smartphone and then shop as usual, except they can leave the store without stopping to checkout and their Amazon account will be charged later.

Through automation, retailers can keep shelves stocked and tidy. At the National Retail Federation (NRF) show earlier this year, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich demonstrated Tally, the world’s first robotic autonomous shelf auditing and analytics solution for retail from Simbe Robotics.

Powered by an Intel NUC with a Core i7 inside and equipped with RealSense cameras, Tally can autonomously navigate a store during business hours to monitor stock levels, ensuring that products are always available, correctly displayed and accurately priced.

Tally by Simbe Robotics is the world’s first robotic autonomous shelf auditing and analytics solution for retail. Photo courtesy of Simbe Robotics.

Robots are now greeting and serving customers at many local stores in the San Francisco Bay Area. At Cafe X, a robo-barista serves customers with greater speed (the average drink preparation takes less than a minute).

Shoppers who visit a Lowe’s Home Improvement store might be greeted by NAVii robotic staff, aka LoweBots, made by Fellow Robots. The bots can help customers with simple questions as well as scan inventory and capture real-time data.

“We designed the NAVii robot to make the shopping experience easier for consumers — simplifying the process of finding the product you’re looking for — while also managing the back-end and keeping shelf inventory up-to-date for the retailer,” said Marco Mascorro, CEO of Fellow Robots.

Robots are even creating on-demand clothing for customers. At the 2017 NRF event, Intel partnered with Shima Seiki to showcase a machine capable of on-demand, in-store 3D knitting. The Mach2XS 153 knitting machine can whip up a custom garment in less than an hour.

Robots are also making deliveries to customers easier. Through DoorDash, an on-demand restaurant delivery service, robots take to the streets of Silicon Valley to deliver food. In the Cambridge area of England, Amazon Prime Air drones successfully completed trial deliveries. Drone delivery in the U.S. may happen later after the Federal Aviation Administration sets rules for drone flight over populated areas.

In the future, it’s not so far-fetched to imagine shopping malls patrolled by robo-cops, shopping carts that autonomously follow customers through the store and bots like the Piaggio Gita that carry shopping bags to a shopper’s home.

If these innovations in retail robots are any indication, it’s likely robots will play a bigger role making in-store shopping experiences easier and more engaging.

]]><p>With the ability to manage inventory in real-time, take payment for items almost anywhere inside a store and even prepare tasty drinks, retail robots could be the next best way to keep customers returning to brick and mortar stores. Home robots were a big hit at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but chances are that &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/will-retail-robots-upgrade-shopping-experiences/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/will-retail-robots-upgrade-shopping-experiences/">Will Retail Robots Upgrade Shopping Experiences?</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/will-retail-robots-upgrade-shopping-experiences/Red Ants Pants: Small Business, Huge Passionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/XVDCh_3VasI/Uncategorized#SHEOWNSITbusiness technologydiversityfashionred ants pantssmall businessstartupwomen in businessDeb Miller LandauMon, 19 Jun 2017 14:14:38 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17309Technology and passion help Red Ants Pants founder Sarah Calhoun run her small business from a rural outpost under Montana’s big sky.

Black angus cows graze in the open fields in sprawling Meagher County, Montana, where the cattle by far outnumber the people. In the county seat of White Sulphur Springs, named for the mineralized springs that boil underground, Sarah Calhoun runs a global business out of an old saddle shop on the town’s quiet main drag. Standing in front of the building, one can look both ways and see the entire town.

This place, a hundred miles from anywhere, seems an unlikely international headquarters for anything.

But nothing about Calhoun is stereotypical.

She chops wood, brands cattle, hunts and fishes, drives around in an old red pickup, and runs a chainsaw camp for women. She doesn’t have an MBA or a background in business, but she has passion and vision. She saw a gap in the marketplace, and filled it: a real need for stylish, sturdy work clothes designed specifically for women.

“After college, I spent a lot of time working in the backcountry — leading trail crews and instructing for Outward Bound,” said Calhoun, CEO and founder of Red Ants Pants. “I really needed a pair of work pants that fit, and no one was making work pants for women.”

She saw other outdoorsy women squeezing their curves into men’s Carhartts and Dickies. She tried to get other apparel companies to make work pants for women, but no one jumped at it.

“I thought I might as well just start a business because no one else was doing it,” she said. “I had no business background whatsoever. I didn’t even know what a business plan was.”

So she picked up a copy of Small Business for Dummies and started following her dreams.

This House of Sky

Calhoun was 25 when she landed in White Sulphur Springs, pulled there after reading the novel This House of Sky by Ivan Doig. The book describes the author’s life growing up in the tiny town.

“I came for a visit and this old saddle shop was for sale and it just felt right, so I went for it,” Calhoun said.

She moved with her dog into the back room and set up shop in the front.

“In this place, I felt like I could live the kind of life I wanted to live.”

Calhoun admits that being a young, single East Coaster coming to this small tight-knit town to open a business was an unusual occurrence. To integrate into the community, she coached volleyball, volunteered as an EMT, worked with the arts council and chamber of commerce, and helped out on cattle drives.

Inherited Work Ethic

Calhoun grew up on a farm in Connecticut, where her parents raised llamas. She and her sister learned how to work hard and developed an entrepreneurial belief that they could do whatever they set their minds to.

“When you live out in the country, you figure out how to do things,” she said. ”You figure out how to make finances work when they’re tight. Problem solving and thinking strategically is always a big part of it.”

When it came time to build Red Ants Pants — named for the fact that, in an ant colony, female ants do all the work — Calhoun pushed aside any doubts by learning new skills. She got a job sewing backpacks so she could learn about production.

“I literally just started sketching the features that I wanted in a pair of pants,” she said, adding that she worked with a pattern maker who designed in 3D using CAD. “We kept making adjustments until we finally got the fit that I was looking for.”

Calhoun learned how to source and import fabric, how to set up a website, find manufacturers and set up a point-of-sale purchase system that would allow her to sell pants to women anywhere in the world.

“There’s no way I could be in business here in White Sulphur Springs without technology,” she said. Among other tech, Calhoun uses an HP Pavilion Notebook loaded with an 7th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, which helps her keep up with her business whether she’s at home or traveling the world.

Today, about 70 percent of sales are online, and the bulk of Red Ants Pants marketing is done through social media.

Tour de Pants

When the female ants work together in a colony they do so collaboratively, something Calhoun puts into practice.

“I just love the idea of ants all working super hard and working all together,” said Calhoun, and this notion of connection has been a driving force behind the brand.

It’s what gave her the idea for Tour de Pants, a grassroots marketing campaign that took her around the country in an airstream trailer loaded with pants in many sizes. She got beer sponsors and held “pants parties” throughout the U.S. and Canada.

“I think Tour de Pants was a great key to our success in that it really set the foundation for the culture of who we are,” she said. “We’re a long way from most places, so I knew that I had to get to our customers. What better way to do that go to their farms and their homes and their barns, and have a party?”

She took getting to know her customers a step further when she started the Red Ants Pants Music Festival in 2011. Lyle Lovett and other A-listers, including Guy Clark and Rodney Crowell, headlined the first event. Some six thousand fans rolled into the small town to listen to music in a cow pasture.

“We had no idea what to expect that first year,” Calhoun said. “The campers and RVs and sheep wagons were just backed up as far as you could see down the valley waiting to get in. It was crazy.”

“The first thing I thought was ‘Do we have enough port-o-potties?’” she said. “We actually ended up buying out all of the toilet paper across three counties that first year.”

Now in its seventh year, the festival sells out to some 16,000 fans.

Thanks to the festival’s success, Calhoun was able to start a nonprofit foundation that supports women working family farms and ranches in rural communities. To date, the foundation has given $85,000 to individuals and organizations across Montana. True to its pioneering spirit, the foundation also offers a four-day chainsaw training class for women.

Looking to the Future

Scripted on the wall in the old saddle shop that Red Ants Pants calls home is the mission statement and driving force behind Calhoun’s passion: “We provide work wear for women: For the makers and the growers, the builders and the doers. We support them with humor and heart, quality and class, integrity and courage — always.”

Calhoun said it took nine years of being in business to nail that statement. “It would’ve felt fluffy if we’d written it in the first year,” she said. “Now, I feel like we’ve lived it.”

]]><p>Technology and passion help Red Ants Pants founder Sarah Calhoun run her small business from a rural outpost under Montana’s big sky. Black angus cows graze in the open fields in sprawling Meagher County, Montana, where the cattle by far outnumber the people. In the county seat of White Sulphur Springs, named for the mineralized &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/she-owns-it-red-ants-pants/">Continued</a></p>
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https://iq.intel.com/she-owns-it-red-ants-pants/Tech Gives Kentucky Derby Faster Run for the Roseshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/A2I_un9IXuU/UncategorizedVicky ThompsonFri, 14 Apr 2017 10:35:16 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17410Real-time technologies bring a data-based approach to horse breeding and training, and the way race fans place winning bets at the Kentucky Derby.

Breeding a Kentucky Derby winner is a multi-million dollar business, and increasingly technology is playing a more critical role in horse racing success.

It’s no secret top horses such as 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharaoh earn $600,000 a day in stud fees from aspiring horse owners eager to breed a future champion. But new digital devices are becoming secret weapons to reaching riches.

With so much money at stake, horse breeders are turning to data analysis and technologies that help influence or control the process, including the timing of a foal’s birth.

The Kentucky Derby is limited to three-year-old horses, but an “old three” may have an advantage. Based on official rules, all thoroughbred horses in the Northern Hemisphere have the same birthday. Regardless of their actual birth date, all race horses turn one year old on Jan. 1 of the year following their birth. Horses born earlier in the year have more time to grow and develop, compared to horses who were born later in the year.

The problem for thoroughbred breeders is that the natural breeding season for horses happens in the spring and summer. However, owners want foals to be born as close to Jan. 1 as possible to give them an advantage in size and maturity.

That’s where Equilume comes in. The Equilume Light Mask shines a blue light into a horse’s eye, which simulates that the days are getting longer, and it’s almost the season for mating. Longer days slow down a horse’s production of melatonin, signaling that it’s time to breed.

The Equilume Light Mask simulates longer days of sunlight, encouraging horses to breed earlier in the season. Image courtesy of Equilume.

Continuing the light therapy during the equine pregnancy has also been shown to increase the birth weight of the foal and prevent late delivery, according to Equilume.

The mask is lightweight with a built-in automatic timer. Equilume inventor Dr. Barbara Murphy evolved the product to make sure battery life lasts through the breeding season. She also made sure the mask is tough enough to withstand bumping into fences, rolling on the ground or other horseplay.

Dr. Murphy said the wearable tech is easier on the horse than previous methods of light therapy, which generally involved moving the horse inside under artificial lighting to simulate longer days of sunlight.

“It allows horses be horses and live outdoors,” Murphy said. “That makes them happier and healthier.”

Tracking Performance

It seems like every sport from golf to basketball to cycling has found a way to make use of wearable tech. It was just a matter of time before the trend hit horse racing. Now the wearable tech trend is spreading quickly across one of the oldest sports.

Former jockey Andrew Stuart, who rode 55 winning horses in his 420-race career, developed E-Trakka, a saddle blanket with in-built GPS and heart-rate monitor for recording a horse’s fitness level.

The E-Trakka monitors a horse’s speed, position, length of stride and heart rate during a workout. Using easy-to-read charts, trainers can compare a horse’s performance to past workouts, getting an early indication of an injury or illness.

Stuart also offers a service called 20/20 Racehorse Training, which uses the E-Trakka data collected from more than 30,000 workouts to get an idea of how a horse measures up to other racers. As Stuart explains it, there are certain factors a competitive racehorse needs to be born with while others can be developed in training.

The E-Trakka data can find a diamond-in-the-rough — a horse that has the potential to be great. It also identifies horses with a limit on their potential based on bad genetic luck, allowing trainers to focus their efforts elsewhere.

“If a horse has a high peak speed but poor recovery, then they were born with the gift to run but were not born with a good cardiovascular system,” Stuart explained. “Other horses have good recovery but don’t have the speed. When you get both, you have an elite athlete.”

In addition to helping trainers make more efficient use of their time and effort, he said there’s a safety feature to using the data.

“It reduces the number of sick or injured horses in a race and also ensures a horse is running a suitable class and distance for its conditioning level,” said Stuart.

Shaking Things Up

Rest and recovery are just as important to a racehorse as a workout, and some trainers have borrowed technology from the space program to help keep their horses ready to run.

When astronauts spend long periods of time in zero gravity, researchers found that they suffered loss of muscle mass and bone strength. Since astronauts don’t have to battle the pull of gravity, NASA had to find another way to keep their bodies functioning well.

Scientists found that vibrating platforms helped reduce the effects of zero gravity, keeping astronauts’ bones and muscles as strong as they would be on Earth.

The sport of horse racing has adopted the same technology, and several companies, including EquiVibe and Vitafloor, offer vibrating plates for horses to stand on in their stalls. Nyquist, the winner of last year’s Kentucky Derby, spends at least 15 minutes a day standing on the platform.

The therapy promises a wide variety of benefits, including increased bone density and improved agility. Nyquist’s trainers believe that the treatment helps with circulation and even digestion.

Placing a Sure Bet

While much of the industry’s technological efforts are aimed at the horses, fans also can benefit from new developments. Churchill Downs has created an app, allowing fans to order food and place bets without leaving their seats. Tech is even improving Kentucky’s famous mint julep.

But which horse should people bet on? Gambling is a multibillion-dollar industry. The Kentucky Derby is one of the biggest betting events of the year, including the Super Bowl and March Madness.

One of the same technologies used to help pick a March Madness bracket can also help on Derby Day. UNU artificial intelligence (AI) uses Swarm technology to help predict everything from Grammy winners to NCAA Tournament games to the Kentucky Derby Superfecta.

UNU’s Swarm uses the wisdom of crowds to make decisions. A question is posed, such as “Who will win the Derby?” to a large group of online users, who have 60 seconds to answer. An algorithm then uses the group’s varied opinions to find a compromise answer, which studies and trials have shown can be uncannily accurate.

Last year UNU founder Louis Rosenberg put Swarm to the test at the Kentucky Derby by predicting a Superfecta, or the top four finishers in the race in the correct order. At 540-1 odds, Rosenberg won a $10,842 payoff from a $20 bet.

From the breeding process to choosing the best competitors for the race to training and care, technology is helping to improve the safety and performance of horses competing in the Kentucky Derby.

]]><p>Real-time technologies bring a data-based approach to horse breeding and training, and the way race fans place winning bets at the Kentucky Derby. Breeding a Kentucky Derby winner is a multi-million dollar business, and increasingly technology is playing a more critical role in horse racing success. It’s no secret top horses such as 2015 Triple &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/tech-gives-kentucky-derby-faster-run-for-the-roses/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/tech-gives-kentucky-derby-faster-run-for-the-roses/">Tech Gives Kentucky Derby Faster Run for the Roses</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/tech-gives-kentucky-derby-faster-run-for-the-roses/VR Draws Gaming Crowd to Australian Nightlifehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/U-YrivOHlU8/UncategorizedAustralian nightlifeReload Bar & GamesVR gamesVicky ThompsonFri, 14 Apr 2017 10:03:50 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17400VR games create new possibilities for social interaction in a popular Australian nightclub, introducing gaming crowds to mobile-to-VR technology.

At Reload Bar & Games in Canberra, Australia, patrons are greeted with the scent of bubble gum, flowing from a fog machine. The bar owners chose the sweet smell to complement the laser beams crisscrossing the club in sync with the pumping music beat. It’s virtual reality (VR) night, and crowds stream into the bar.

“We’re all people with technology backgrounds running a hospitality venue, so we’re mixing the two worlds,” said software developer Ravi Sharma, who co-owns the bar with internet cafe operator James Andrews.

This Australian hot spot draws in customers with the lure of new and retro video games (played on the Xbox, PlayStation, Wii U and PC) as well as eSports, board and card games, and even anime and comics.

On VR night, the games on demonstration have a broad appeal, ranging anywhere from Fruit Ninja to soccer games where players take on the role of goalie.

One of the local favorites is Castle Rush, which pits four players inside VR against everyone else in the bar. The game uses mobile-to-VR technology to get everyone involved. While the four people in VR guard the castle with virtual bows and arrows, the other players try to dethrone them using their phones.

Up to 100 players control the pillaging horde, and according to Sharma, the patrons get carried away as the crowd cheers on players.

The owners expect the excitement will only heighten once they start the demo for VFC: This Is Fighting. The club plans to host a mixed martial arts (MMA)-style VR fighting league, where two players square off in a real fighting cage, although only the players’ avatars will actually hit each other.

The crowd cheers for VR players at Reload Bar, where everyone can have a turn playing the games. Image courtesy of Ravi Sharma.

“We typically attract a tech-y kind of patron, but we also have customers who have nothing to do with the tech world,” Sharma said. “Usually they are the ones with their jaws hanging open, trying to get a handle on what the heck is going on.”

Events like VR night provide people the opportunity to learn first-hand what makes VR technology so exciting. This is especially important for an experience like VR, which is notoriously hard to promote.

“Virtual reality is something you must experience to understand,” said Brennan Hatton, co-developer of the VR game Castle Rush. “Like going to Burning Man or visiting Yosemite National Park — photos, videos or even someone who just did it can’t explain the experience.”

Because many players may be trying VR for the first time, Hatton believes it’s crucial the experience goes seamlessly. An experience that is uncomfortable or makes players sick could discourage people from using VR in the future.

“Virtual reality should be a nice place to go — friendly, full of color and welcoming,” said Hatton. “That’s the easiest way to ensure people want to use it again.”

Reload Bar offers the traditional bar fare in addition to new and retro video games. Image courtesy of Ravi Sharma.

At Reload Bar & Games, all games on VR night are communal and inclusive.

“We wouldn’t want a single-player experience that is only fun for one person,” said Sharma. “We prefer the content to be fast and rotating so everyone can play.”

The bar also creates its own VR content. The club’s development wing, Reload Labs, makes in-house software, including simulations of cricket, football and rugby. The lab is also working on an augmented reality (AR) game that customers can play on their phones. When they scan a cocktail napkin or coaster, a Space Invaders-style game pops up, allowing players to play for two-for-one drinks.

Other developers in the local community are making VR games specifically for Reload Bar as well. In this way, dedicated public spaces for VR encourage the development of new types of gaming experiences.

]]><p>VR games create new possibilities for social interaction in a popular Australian nightclub, introducing gaming crowds to mobile-to-VR technology. At Reload Bar &#38; Games in Canberra, Australia, patrons are greeted with the scent of bubble gum, flowing from a fog machine. The bar owners chose the sweet smell to complement the laser beams crisscrossing the club in &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/vr-draws-gaming-crowd-to-australian-nightlife/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/vr-draws-gaming-crowd-to-australian-nightlife/">VR Draws Gaming Crowd to Australian Nightlife</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/vr-draws-gaming-crowd-to-australian-nightlife/5G Set To Transform the Future of Gaminghttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/Q6mBlV6BZ28/Uncategorized5G5G and gamingaugmented realityDota 2virtual realityVicky ThompsonThu, 13 Apr 2017 08:50:42 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17333From lag-free eSports to the next generation of AR games to using the cloud for VR gaming, 5G networks bring new possibilities to gaming over the next decade.

In the popular computer game Dota 2, one-tenth of a second can be a make-or-break moment for eSports teams.

That’s why on the eve of the biggest qualifier of the year, the South Korean eSports team MVP.Hot6ix caught a flight to Singapore, just to tap on internet speeds that were slightly faster.

“It started with [us] complaining about delays we were getting in the game,” Wong Jeng Yih, aka Nutz, said in an interview.

In South Korea, the delay took 0.16 seconds, but in Singapore the latency time was lower — only 0.06 seconds. While one-tenth of a second may seem paltry, the team felt like this was enough to give Singapore-based teams an advantage.

Latency is an age-old riddle in online gaming. Latency is the time between a device pinging the network and getting a response. Lag in a connection creates a situation where one player is slower than their opponent through no fault of their own. Often, the playing field is even.

But 5G could solve the problem once and for all. This next generation of wireless technology, set to roll out globally in 2020, is shooting for a standard called “ultra-reliable low latency communications.” With latency times of less than a millisecond, connections will be nearly instantaneous.

If the technology can deliver on this promise, laggard connections will become a thing of the past. This speed is set to radically transform the gaming landscape, too.

5G Opens New Opportunities in Gaming

In 2019, South Korea will become the first country to adopt super-fast 5G networks, giving gamers a sizable boost in online capabilities. According to Alex Choi, chief technology officer of SK Telecom, games are due for a substantial upgrade. This includes eSports, augmented reality (AR) games and virtual reality (VR) games.

In the lab, 5G wireless technology has already reached incredible speeds. Under ideal conditions, the connections were 10 times faster than the fastest broadband, and up to 100 times faster than 4G cellular networks. These mighty networks are expected to power some truly unique innovations, from fully autonomous cars to remote surgery to robots and the Internet of Things (IoT). Similarly, 5G could open amazing possibilities for gaming.

With 5G, Pokemon Evolve

For a few weeks last year, it seemed like the whole planet was infatuated with Pokemon Go. In New York’s Central Park, hundreds of people swarmed the park trying to catch Vaporeon, a Pokemon that resembles a four-legged sea creature. Using a mobile device to capture Pichu and pals in AR proved irresistible.

In the future, fast and reliable 5G networks will allow AR creatures to become smarter and more agile than before.

“Pokemon are computationally dumb little objects that are just dumped in a particular place with no context,” said Tawny Schlieski of Intel, referring to how their character models simply stand there, hovering on the front of the screen. “They aren’t aware of their environment.”

With AR in 5G, this could change. By tapping into geographical data that requires a higher bandwidth, such as Google Street View, game designers could give AR characters more ways to interact with their real-world environment.

For example, Pokemon could play hide and seek with the player. Digital creatures could climb in a tree, crouch behind a chair or duck inside a building, according to Schlieski. Faster networks could also open up new ways to play in AR with other people, such as teaming up with a group of friends to herd Pokemon around town.

“To make that work any time in the foreseeable future, internet speed is going to be critical,” she said. “Ideally you want to be able to send a lot of information.”

VR Games and the Cloud

Meanwhile, 5G connectivity also promises to alleviate the cost burdens of VR gaming among hardcore enthusiasts.

As things stand, gaming in VR is cost prohibitive. A gamer needs to own expensive hardware to run VR games. Without a cutting edge graphics card and processor, VR systems like Oculus Rift and HTC Vive cannot render lush, believable virtual worlds.

5G may offer a workaround. Cloud computing is very powerful, but the reach of the cloud is currently limited by the speed of broadband.

“As network speeds increase, more rendering and CPU functions will be performed in the cloud,” said Anthony Batt, the co-founder of the VR publishing house Wevr.

Batt explained how VR games could utilize speedy 5G networks to offload many of the complex computations and tasks, which are normally done locally on home PCs, to the army of computers waiting in the cloud.

He believes that eventually full-fledged PC-powered VR headsets could run on devices as simple as mobile phones. This will ultimately bring VR gaming to the masses.

]]><p>From lag-free eSports to the next generation of AR games to using the cloud for VR gaming, 5G networks bring new possibilities to gaming over the next decade. In the popular computer game Dota 2, one-tenth of a second can be a make-or-break moment for eSports teams. That’s why on the eve of the biggest qualifier &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/5g-set-transform-future-gaming/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/5g-set-transform-future-gaming/">5G Set To Transform the Future of Gaming</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/5g-set-transform-future-gaming/Green Modders: Can Custom PCs Reduce Electronic Waste?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/r3pvD2luIss/Uncategorizeddisposable electronicsGreen moddersPC moddingVicky ThompsonTue, 11 Apr 2017 11:24:17 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17030PC modding goes green as custom builders entice consumers to buy tech works of art instead of disposable electronics.

The sound of LEGO bricks snapping together is now just white noise for PC builder Mike Schropp, who uses thousands of the plastic pieces to encase his custom-built, eco-friendly PCs.

Schropp’s custom computers are designed to adapt and overcome the typically short life span of electronics. With customization and upgradability built into the design, he hopes to change the relationship of consumers with their PCs from short-term infatuation to long-term ownership.

“The desktop PC market tends to revolve around people buying a black metal box, then at some point sadly throwing it away and buying another one,” Schropp said. “This produces massive waste and a huge environmental burden.”

Custom built by Mike Schropp, the Micro LEGO Computer system offers room to expand the system using add-on LEGO brick modules. Image courtesy of Mike Schropp.

Others have joined the cause to make PC purchasing better for the environment. These so-called “green modders” are hoping their PCs help people build a long-lasting relationship with custom artisanal computers. Creations like Schropp’s LEGO PCs and the handcrafted sustainable wood-encased Volta V are designed to make consumers think twice about discarding these tech works of art.

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

The move toward responsible tech consumption couldn’t come at a better time. According to United Nations University, electronic waste totaled nearly 41.8 million metric tons in 2014. According to Green Citizen, a San Francisco Bay Area-based electronics recycling center, an estimated 70 million computers wind up in U.S. landfills, releasing toxins that can endanger the planet and human life.

Sustainable modding is part of a larger ongoing effort to address the wastefulness of tech culture. Sony implemented a “take back” recycling electronics program in 2007, and Sprint and Dell similarly joined forces with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2011 to promote electronics donation and recycling.

The EPA launched the Sustainable Materials Management Electronics Challenge in 2012 to encourage more electronics manufacturers and retailers to use certified electronics refurbishers and recyclers. In 2016, challenge participants collected more than 256,822 tons of electronics. In terms of positive environmental impact, this volume of electronics recycling is equivalent to generating enough electricity for more than 90,000 U.S. homes for one year.

Tech Works of Art

One big problem green modders face is changing consumers’ perception about what green PC design looks like. Jeffrey Stephenson, aka Slipperyskip, an artisanal PC builder, found that one deterrent to wastefulness is convincing customers that computers can be artistic design objects. For example, his handcrafted mid-century builds look right at home next to the other artistic furniture populating his living room.

Custom PC builds by Jeffrey Stephenson fit into a home’s decor as tech works of art. Image courtesy of Jeffrey Stephenson.

Firm in his belief that PCs should blend into a room’s decor, Stephenson has rejected electronics that stand out like a sore thumb, personally banning mass-produced PCs made of plastic, steel or LED lights that make his house look like a mini Las Vegas strip.

Ty Underwood, one of Volta V’s designers, agreed that sustainable design should be pleasing to the eye. He and his team chose to use natural materials that grow more beautiful with age.

“Well-built wooden furniture develops color and character over time,” Underwood explained. “[A prerequisite of] sustainability is making an object that the user wants to keep, eliminating any ‘perceived obsolescence’ effect.”

Based in Greenville, South Carolina, the Volta V team went through a painstaking prototyping process to find the most eco-friendly materials. The wood needed to not only be beautiful, but also be sustainably sourced, able to withstand the precision machining of the CNC process and resistant to the heat generated by hardware. After trying walnut, bamboo, cherry, hickory, ash, oak and a few others, Volta V decided to use U.S.-grown renewable forest timber.

The result? “Next year’s computers won’t make this year’s Volta V look dated and boring because it will look great forever,” said Underwood.

Additionally, finding eco-friendly hardware means sticking to products that use conflict-free mineral resources. Underwood uses Intel microprocessors, which are sourced from conflict-free mines in Eastern Congo that provide a safe working environment for miners.

Upgrade Instead of Replacing

Another way that green modders are attracting sales is emphasizing upgradeability. Schropp’s LEGO builds focus on longevity through hardware rather than artisanal materials. The more a buyer upgrades, the less waste gets sent to landfills.

According to Schropp, upgradability deters customers from tossing outdated rigs by encouraging them to invest in repairs. By framing PCs with a nostalgia-soaked LEGO aesthetic, he invites consumers to think back to a time when imagination was the only limit to what they could build. He believes these open-ended builds are always ripe for tinkering.

Despite different approaches, green modders agree on one fundamental concept when it comes to eco-friendly PCs: Consumers don’t need to sacrifice power for sustainability. High quality hardware is engineered with longevity in mind.

Underwood agrees that filling Volta V’s artisanal chassis with premium components adds life to the build. A small investment up front ensures long lasting performance, features and durability.

Using high quality components helps maintain the longevity of custom PCs. Image courtesy of Volta V.

Whether its upgradability or aesthetic beauty, the green modder movement takes PCs outside the realm of mass produced items. Through customization and craftsmanship, they hope to foster personal relationships between consumers and their computers.

“The closer people feel to the creation and maintenance of the objects around them, the more emotionally invested [they] are in making a better future for people and our planet,” Underwood said.

]]><p>PC modding goes green as custom builders entice consumers to buy tech works of art instead of disposable electronics. The sound of LEGO bricks snapping together is now just white noise for PC builder Mike Schropp, who uses thousands of the plastic pieces to encase his custom-built, eco-friendly PCs. Schropp’s custom computers are designed to &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/green-modders-can-custom-pcs-reduce-electronic-waste/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/green-modders-can-custom-pcs-reduce-electronic-waste/">Green Modders: Can Custom PCs Reduce Electronic Waste?</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/green-modders-can-custom-pcs-reduce-electronic-waste/Bug Tech Helps in Understanding the Fear of Insectshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/J_ZyPUwOTrA/Uncategorizedbug techJessa ThurmanThomas J. Watson FellowshipVicky ThompsonFri, 07 Apr 2017 14:05:42 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17204A research fellow uses bug tech tools to explore how the fear of insects keeps people from appreciating the environmental value of these six-legged critters.

Jessa Thurman is often off the beaten path, exploring jungles, rainforests and peat swamps across Australia and Southeast Asia in search of beetles, mantises and all manner of exotic wasps, flies, ants and other insects.

She digitally captures each insect, eager to understand what makes people fear them. Inside all the data she’s collecting, Thurman hopes to find answers that will help humans live in closer harmony with bugs.

She believes a better understanding of insects’ ecological value, including how they help preserve the health of everything from the water we drink to the air we breathe, will lead to greater appreciation for the most diverse group of animals on the planet.

Eight months into a prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for graduating college seniors, Thurman is “traveling around the world in pursuit of insects” for a full year. On her journey so far, she’s handled hundreds of insect varieties, ranging from pinky nail-sized fig wasps, to thumb-sized orchid mantises, to stick insects as long as an arm.

While entomologists of the past may have written down notes in a field journal, taken pictures and hopefully published an article in a scholarly journal, Thurman uses tech tools in her own mobile bug research lab to share what she’s learned about people’s love-hate relationship with insects.

She captures photos, video and audio of her tiny subjects with an iPhone 6 and macro lens, which she downloads to a Lenovo Flex 3 (a 2-in-1 laptop PC). She then uploads footage to Google Drive. She has taken more than 3,500 photos and videos, and has shared many on social media, including Instagram and Facebook, as well as on her blog, From Extermination to Appreciation.

Thurman still has a big job ahead as there are an estimated 5 to 30 million insect species worldwide. And with millions of the world’s insect subspecies still not yet fully identified, Thurman bemoans people’s all-too-frequent impulse to swat, squash or spray these six-legged critters.

“Insects are the most abundant animals on the planet,” Thurman said. Through her fellowship, she hopes to move big agriculture and consumers away from exterminating insects to appreciating their environmental value.

Insects play a vital role in the Earth’s ecosystem, from pollinating flowers to decomposing organic matter to controlling bug populations through predator insects such as the parasitoid wasp, who keeps populations of plant-eating insects in check.

“I never envisioned myself as a scientist,” said Thurman, who graduated in 2016 with a degree in biology from Hendrix College in Arkansas. She admits her early vision of scientists were of “stoic men in lab coats.” A female professor in college changed her view on the roles women can play in science, which she discovered can include digging for fossils, or even studying geology or entomology.

After months of exploring and data collecting, Thurman has yet to meet a bug she didn’t like. For people stricken with bug phobias, Thurman has some advice: “Treat them with respect and be calm.”

]]><p>A research fellow uses bug tech tools to explore how the fear of insects keeps people from appreciating the environmental value of these six-legged critters. Jessa Thurman is often off the beaten path, exploring jungles, rainforests and peat swamps across Australia and Southeast Asia in search of beetles, mantises and all manner of exotic wasps, &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/bug-tech-helps-understanding-fear-insects/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/bug-tech-helps-understanding-fear-insects/">Bug Tech Helps in Understanding the Fear of Insects</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/bug-tech-helps-understanding-fear-insects/Giant Drone Racing May Be Next Big Spectator Sporthttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/waSk-Nrh-wQ/UncategorizeddronesEddie Codelgiant drone racingX Class dronesVicky ThompsonWed, 17 May 2017 14:07:39 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17162Drone racers are evolving the sport using bigger, more powerful drones that could have implications for the future of commercial drone use.

Drone racing is becoming a mainstream sport, but many racers are making it bigger and better. Racing small, bee-like buzzing drones around obstacle courses is exhilarating, but a growing number of pilots are turning to larger, more powerful drones, aiming to expand the sport beyond aerial go-cart races to become more like an adrenaline arousing NASCAR experience.

Daredevil pilots like Zoe Stumbaugh, aka ZoeFPV, and Kevin Sellers, aka SlashedFPV, are going crazy for X Class drones, which span roughly three feet (one meter) from motor to motor. In many cases, these giant drones are twice the size of those used at popular competitions like the Drone Grand Prix. They can have all the agility and speed of their smaller mini-quad counterparts, but they pose bigger challenges for builders and pilots. They can also create more spectacular crashes compared with smaller drones, which is painful for pilots but unforgettable for spectators.

“I’m driven by the X Class because of the sheer awesome scale of it,” said Stumbaugh, a well-known drone racer who recently appeared in Intel’s FlightLab video series on small drones. “We’re working with machines that are not just little toys, but something that has serious power behind them that can bring serious consequences.”

Stumbaugh said the rush of racing big drones is similar to the thrill she used to get riding her motorcycle. Excitement also comes from building drones and sharing her piloting skills with others.

Larger drones are easier to see and cause bigger crashes than their mini-quad cousins. Those are just a few reasons why giant drone racing is poised to become a popular spectator sport, according to Sellers, a founding member of Team Vondrone.

“I see it being part of something like X Games, or a destination sport on its own,” said Sellers.

The first known X Class drone race took place on February 4 at the AMA home field of the Livermore Flying Electrons in California. Team Vondrone, considered the first organized X Class team, faced off against four competitors. [Disclosure: writer Eddie Codel is a supporting member of Team Vondrone.]

Each pilot built their own uniquely designed, large-scale multirotor drone. With no standard frame layout, number of motors or prescribed size or weight of components, X Class drone racing remains an experiment, but with great potential.

Stumbaugh became interested in racing bigger drones because mini-quads — the smaller racing drones — are reaching their performance limits. She said X Class drones have lots of room to grow.

“I’ve already kind of hung up mini-quad racing,” she said. “I still fly and love mini-quads, but my focus right now is purely on the 1000 class (bigger drones). There are more technical feats and more advances in the technology that I can help push.”

Stumbaugh said pilots haven’t come close to reaching the potential for these big machines. Maneuverability skills are critical, but she’s eager to push her big drone to higher and higher speeds, more than double the 60 miles per hour (mph) racing speeds of mini-quad.

“I think we’ll hit 100 miles an hour within the next two months,” predicted Stumbaugh. ”We’ll probably hit 150 by the end of the year with a little luck.”

It will take new technologies and designs to get there.

“Most of the gear that we’re using was created for aerial video platforms,” said Sellers. “They have the lifting power, but they’re not built for speed or the responsiveness that we need when we’re racing.”

While X Class drones can rely upon flight controllers, cameras and a few other technologies used by mini-quad racers, Stumbaugh said larger racing drones require lots of innovation to improve performance. There is need for new electronic speed controllers (ESCs), new motors and better propellers. She sees manufacturers starting to catch on to these needs.

“They’re not just thinking about the efficiency of how long they can float,” she said. “They want to start building machines that can go faster and compete.”

It’s still early days for big drone racing, but technology innovations that spring from the sport could benefit the commercial drone industry, according to Anil Nanduri, vice president in the New Technologies Group and general manager of the UAV segment at Intel. His team recently released the Intel Falcon 8+, a commercial-grade drone designed with sensing and autopilot technologies to help it capture aerial precision data (see Industrial Drones Put Digital Eye on Airbus Assembly Line).

“While commercial drone requirements vary depending on their specific needs, the use of new materials or new rotor and prop designs, FPV radio communications, latency reductions and other innovations that might come from drone racing could be applied to the commercial drone industry,” said Nanduri.

Just how e-sports competitions like Intel Extreme Masters have over the years, Nanduri said drone racing in its various forms will attract sponsors eager to participate in new sports and entertainment events.

“There are many small players catering to the drone racing platform needs and you will continue to see them grow in numbers,” he said.

Larger drones will need new ESCs, new motors and better propellers. Image courtesy of Eddie Codel.

Stumbaugh believes getting manufacturers and sponsors onboard will give big drone racing a shot in the arm and help the sport catch on faster.

“We need teams that have sponsorships so they can get parts they need for these machines,” she said. “It’s no longer a mini-quad where you can build it for a few hundred dollars. This is something that costs upwards of $700 to $1,000 to put together a proper machine. So, we need sponsors behind that. Especially when these machines crash because that’s expensive.”

Stumbaugh and Sellers are preparing their giant drone rigs for the next X Class exhibition on April 29 at Flite Fest West in Vallejo, Calif. It just might be an historic race between an evolved fleet of X Class racers that break the 100 mph threshold.

]]><p>Drone racers are evolving the sport using bigger, more powerful drones that could have implications for the future of commercial drone use. Drone racing is becoming a mainstream sport, but many racers are making it bigger and better. Racing small, bee-like buzzing drones around obstacle courses is exhilarating, but a growing number of pilots are &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/giant-drone-racing-may-next-big-spectator-sport/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/giant-drone-racing-may-next-big-spectator-sport/">Giant Drone Racing May Be Next Big Spectator Sport</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/giant-drone-racing-may-next-big-spectator-sport/Simulating a Different Birth of the Moonhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/v_lRPJzbXxs/Uncategorizedbirth of moon. Pradeep Dubeycluster computersIntel LabssupercomputersTechnion-Israel InstituteVicky ThompsonThu, 06 Apr 2017 09:05:33 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=17040Planetary scientists in Israel are using linked computers to unravel the secrets of how the moon formed.

Earth’s moon is special. At 2,000 miles across, it’s the largest moon in the solar system compared to the planet it orbits. But questions about the birth of the moon have always been a topic of contention among planetary scientists.

Knowing the answer would help scientists understand the formation of Earth and the solar system, as well as other planets and solar systems, said Raluca Rufu, a planetary scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science. She said it can even help know where to search for extraterrestrial life.

The multiple-impact hypothesis proposes that the moon was formed by debris kicked up by many high-velocity collisions with smaller objects. Image courtesy of NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

The leading explanation has always been the “giant impact theory,” also known as the “Big Whack.” That theory states something roughly the size of Mars collided with the early Earth, and the material ejected into space formed a disc that eventually clumped into the object that lights up the night skies today. However, this doesn’t explain how the Earth and the moon are almost identical in composition. What happened to the leftovers of the other body?

The researchers used the institute’s high-performance computer cluster, with 624 CPUs and a total of more than 5,000 processor cores and 2.9 TB of memory. (Home computers and laptops typically have anywhere from one to eight processor cores.)

They simulated a total of 864 impacts by bodies ranging from one-hundredth to one-tenth the mass of Earth. Each simulation was so calculation-intensive it took a couple of days to run on 12 processors.

Their findings suggest the multiple-impact hypothesis checks out. Each simulated impact formed a floating disc of debris that eventually coalesced into what’s called a “sub-lunar moonlet.” Gravity then pulled in material kicked up by later impacts, like a growing ball of Play-Doh, until the result was something in the size range of the moon.

“We are imagining a half-dozen or dozen impactors over a period of 60 to 100 million years,” said Aharonsen. Smaller objects would leave fewer traces of themselves behind, he added. Some objects likely traveled very fast, kicking up more of the proto-Earth material that ended up in the moon.

The moon may have been formed by a floating disc of debris, growing like a ball of Play-Doh. Image courtesy of NASA/JPL.

Who Needs a Supercomputer?

The simulation shows how scientists are leveraging the power of linked computer clusters to do work that would otherwise be impossible without access to a supercomputer, said Intel’s Pradeep Dubey, a Fellow at Intel Labs.

“In the old days, there used to be a big difference [between supercomputers and clusters]”, he said. “Now, that distinction is less meaningful.”

While the average supercomputer still out-performs setups like the one in Israel, Dubey said, computer clusters are much more affordable and accessible — and they’re becoming more and more powerful.

Other researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute are putting the cluster to work to search for previously missed exoplanets and to understand the moods of Jupiter’s atmosphere, said Rufu from the Weizmann Institute of Science.

The next phase of the moon project includes using simulations to look more closely at exactly how the ejected debris gloms together into larger and larger moonlets, she said, a process that could have been more common during the formation of the solar system than previously thought.

Luckily the solar system is mostly cleared out of large wandering bodies, Rufu said, so our modern moon is probably the final version. “You can sleep OK at night.”

]]><p>Planetary scientists in Israel are using linked computers to unravel the secrets of how the moon formed. Earth&#8217;s moon is special. At 2,000 miles across, it’s the largest moon in the solar system compared to the planet it orbits. But questions about the birth of the moon have always been a topic of contention among planetary scientists. &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/simulating-different-birth-of-the-moon/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/simulating-different-birth-of-the-moon/">Simulating a Different Birth of the Moon</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/simulating-different-birth-of-the-moon/VR and Immersive Tech Help Tell Great Storieshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/intel/scoop/~3/G7NEvrDy4Co/UncategorizedConnected WorldsDesign I/ONew York Hall of Sciencevirtual realityVicky ThompsonMon, 03 Apr 2017 16:48:55 PDThttp://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library/?p=16817Innovative companies use virtual reality, 360-degree video, augmented reality and other immersive technologies to create interactive worlds that pull audiences into the story.

At the New York Hall of Science, children learn about sustainability in a whole new way. Forget the snooze-worthy films and the don’t-touch glass display cases of yesteryear.

Today’s tech-savvy youth can engage with a 38-foot high digital waterfall that flows through six connected habitats in a 2,300-square-foot interactive floor. Young visitors learn how their physical interaction with this shared source of water can impact the balance among the virtual habitats.

Theodore Watson, co-founder of Design I/O, believes interaction, exploration and play are essential activities for people to understand the world around them.

“Interactive experiences have mostly been confined to small screens, which isolate people from their environments,” Watson said. “What we love about large-scale immersive installations is that they allow people to interact with design and technology in a completely different and much more natural way. People aren’t staring down at their phones; they are collectively engaging with a dynamic world, using their bodies to interact in a way that feels seamless and magical.”

Interactive Advertising

Artists and designers aren’t the only ones playing with new technologies. UNIT9, a design studio that creates innovative experiences for brands, uses 360-degree video, virtual reality (VR) and other tools to create compelling stories in advertising campaigns.

According to Yates Buckley, technical partner at UNIT9, VR, augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) help people digest stories and information.

“The Rs (VR, AR and MR) are spatial and immersive in a way that they lead to much stronger recall over time,” he said. “Memory is a fundamental component of a brand. If you can remember it, you have made an impression for the future, a sort of insurance for your relationship with the customer.”

UNIT9’s Samsung Bedtime VR Stories campaign, for example, tackled the controversial issue of sharing VR with children by looking at how headsets could help a mother who travels for business read a book with her daughter from afar. In its Mercedes-Benz NOW ad, UNIT9 created a live 12-hour MR commercial that combined the physical elements of live music and dancing with digital objects, including a rotating map of the world and generative computer graphics.

These interactive campaigns encourage customers to interact with a brand’s content in new and memorable ways.

In Studio Play, visitors interact and play with art collections. Image courtesy of Design I/O.

The Future of Storytelling

However, despite the elevated interest in interactive stories, Buckley said certain barriers remain. Customers want authentic experiences, and they don’t want to deal with long download times, subpar user experiences or other technical hassles.

As traditional videos give way to 360-degree videos and VR, large tech companies will continue to lead the pack when it comes to telling stories through the latest technologies, according to Josh Ritchie, founder of Column Five, a content marketing agency.

“You need dollars to drive content creation on a new frontier,” Ritchie said, noting that bigger companies tend to have more money to experiment. “This will all be fueled by brands, and … it will give way to a lot of things we haven’t seen yet.”

Still, building it doesn’t mean the audiences will come. Ritchie and Buckley agree there will be a lot of experimenting and failing before some technologies work for wide audiences.

“Attention is still at a premium, so the potential of individuals interacting because of increasing access to a particular technology doesn’t mean they actually will,” Buckley said. “The upside is that newer technologies are interesting because of the novelty itself. People are learning a new language, and there is a joy that is intrinsic to any new experience of this type.”

It appears interactive design studios are also trying to learn the same new language and stay ahead of the game. Building a large-scale exhibit like Connected Worlds, for example, requires quite a bit of technical prowess.

Although Design I/O is behind immersive installations ranging from Weather Worlds, a project that gave children the power to conjure tornadoes and strike lightening, to Studio Play, an exhibit that helped the whole family interact and play with a collection of artwork, Connected Worlds was an extraordinarily complex endeavor. It required multiple projectors, Mac Book Pro computers, Kinect depth cameras and high-resolution infrared cameras.

“It is a really complex technical setup and all the computers are sharing information every second to create a single, seamless experience,” Watson explained. “From the user perspective, however, the technology is completely invisible. [The exhibit is] simply a magical world you can step into and explore.”

From responsive installations to advertisements using 360-degree video, these seamless experiences are changing the way audiences experience art. The stories get audiences interested in the content, but then they want to play.

]]><p>Innovative companies use virtual reality, 360-degree video, augmented reality and other immersive technologies to create interactive worlds that pull audiences into the story. At the New York Hall of Science, children learn about sustainability in a whole new way. Forget the snooze-worthy films and the don’t-touch glass display cases of yesteryear. Today’s tech-savvy youth can &#8230; <a href="https://iq.intel.com/vr-and-immersive-tech-help-tell-great-stories/">Continued</a></p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iq.intel.com/vr-and-immersive-tech-help-tell-great-stories/">VR and Immersive Tech Help Tell Great Stories</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://iqglobal.intel.com/iq-content-library">iQ by Intel</a>.</p>
https://iq.intel.com/vr-and-immersive-tech-help-tell-great-stories/